title: Schottky barrier and contact resistance of InSb nanowire field-effect transistors.
abstract: Understanding of the electrical contact properties of semiconductor nanowire (NW) field-effect transistors (FETs) plays a crucial role in the use of semiconducting NWs as building blocks for future nanoelectronic devices and in the study of fundamental physics problems. Here, we report on a study of the contact properties of Ti/Au, a widely used contact metal combination, when contacting individual InSb NWs via both two-probe and four-probe transport measurements. We show that a Schottky barrier of height [Formula: see text] is present at the metal-InSb NW interfaces and its effective height is gate-tunable. The contact resistance ([Formula: see text]) in the InSb NWFETs is also analyzed by magnetotransport measurements at low temperatures. It is found that [Formula: see text] in the on-state exhibits a pronounced magnetic field-dependent feature, namely it is increased strongly with increasing magnetic field after an onset field [Formula: see text]. A qualitative picture that takes into account magnetic depopulation of subbands in the NWs is provided to explain the observation. Our results provide solid experimental evidence for the presence of a Schottky barrier at Ti/Au-InSb NW interfaces and can be used as a basis for design and fabrication of novel InSb NW-based nanoelectronic devices and quantum devices.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Dingxun
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Sepideh Gorji
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Ghalamestani
authors.forename: Kimberly A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Dick
authors.forename: H Q
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Xu