Current–voltage characteristics of metal-insulator-semiconductor structures via quantum mechanical tunneling

Abstract

The current–voltage (I-V) characteristics for a metal-insulator-heavily-doped semiconductor structure are computed numerically by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The Fowler–Nordheim tunneling expression was found to be inappropriate to estimate the barrier potential nor found to fit the experimental results at both high and low applied fields. It is shown also that the computed I–V characteristic curves agree well with the recently published experimental data for Ta-Sn-O and Ta2O5 films at the high as well as low fields.