Direct assessment of tunable Schottky barriers by internal photoemission spectroscopy

Al/GaAs(001) junctions in which the Schottky barrier was tuned through fabrication of a pseudomorphic Si interface layer were characterized by internal photoemission spectroscopy. Well-defined photoabsorption onsets corresponding to Schottky barrier heights ranging from 0.3 to 1.1 eV were observed in different devices. Our results point to the possible exploitation of tunable Schottky barriers in metal/semiconductor and metal/semiconductor/metal photon detectors. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(98)04428-3].