Silicon carbide/diamond heterostructure rectifying contacts

The first results pertaining to the fabrication of an optically transparent SiC contact on naturally occurring semiconducting diamond C(001) substrates are reported. The SiC layer is formed by electron-beam evaporation of an Si film followed by a two-step high-temperature annealing process. By employing Al dots as a metal mask, mesa heterostructure diodes comprising Al/SiC/C(001) were fabricated by etching in an electron cyclotron resonance oxygen plasma. Rectifying I–V characteristics were obtained from the mesa heterostructures.