Design and characterization of TlInSe2 varactor devices

TlInSe2 single crystal has been successfully prepared by the Bridgman crystal growth technique. The crystal, which exhibits compositional atomic percentages of 25.4%, 25.2% and 49.4% for TI, In and Se, respectively, is found to be of tetragonal structure with lattice parameters of a=0.8035 and c=0.6883 nm. The crystals were used to design radio frequency sensitive varactor device. The temperature dependence of the current-voltage characteristics of the device allowed the calculation of the room temperature barrier height and ideality factor as 0.87 eV and as 3.2, respectively. Rising the device temperature increased the barrier height and decreased the ideality factor. This behavior was attributed to the current transport across the metal-semiconductor interface. The capacitance of the device is observed to increase with increasing voltage and increasing temperature as well. The temperature activation of the capacitance starts above 82 degrees C with a temperature coefficient of capacitance being 1.08 x 10 (3) K (1). Furthermore, the capacitance of the device was observed to increase with increasing frequency up to a maximum critical frequency of 4.0 kHz, after which the capacitance decreased with increasing frequency. The behavior reflected the ability of maximum amount of charge holding being at a 4.0 kHz. The analysis of the capacitance-voltage characteristics at fixed frequencies reflected a frequency dependent barrier height and acceptors density. The decrease in the barrier height and acceptors density with increasing frequency is mainly due to the inability of the free charge to follow the ac signal. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.