Vertical GaN-on-GaN nanowire Schottky barrier diodes by top-down fabrication approach

An optimized top-down approach was utilized to fabricate vertical GaN-on-GaN nanowire Schottky barrier diodes (NWSBDs) in this letter. The suppressed reverse leakage current and enhanced breakdown voltage (BV) of the vertical GaN NWSBDs are attributed to the reduced electric field at the interface of the Schottky junction achieved through the dielectric reduced surface field technique. As-fabricated NWSBD delivers a low turn-on voltage of 0.80 V, a near-unity ideality factor of 1.04, along with a soft BV of 480 V. The measured soft BV is comparable with the avalanche BV of the p–n diode with a similar net doping concentration in the drift region.