Vital Role of Oxygen for the Formation of Highly Rectifying Schottky Barrier Diodes on Amorphous Zinc–Tin–Oxide with Various Cation Compositions

We present electrical properties of Schottky barrier diodes on room-temperature deposited amorphous zinc–tin–oxide (ZTO) with Zn/(Zn + Sn) contents between 0.12 and 0.72. A combinatorial approach with continuous composition spread pulsed laser deposition is used to achieve the wide range of compositions with four samples each on 50 × 50 mm² glass substrates. The Schottky barrier contacts were fabricated by the reactive direct-current sputtering of platinum. Best diode properties (rectification ratio <i>S</i>_V = 2.7 × 10⁷, ideality factor η = 1.05, and effective barrier height ϕ_B,eff = 1.25 eV) are obtained for a composition of 0.63 Zn/(Zn + Sn). Aging on the timescale of days and months is observed that leads to improved device properties (higher rectifications and lower ideality factors). In particular, the diodes with the lowest performance in the as-prepared state show the biggest improvements. The best diode properties after the aging process (<i>S</i>_V = 3.9 × 10⁷, η = 1.12, and ϕ_B,eff = 1.31 eV) were also observed for 0.63 Zn/(Zn + Sn)