Investigation on electrical contacts on n-type silicon

Almost all the diagnostic techniques for semiconducting materials require the accomplishment of ohmic and/or rectifying contacts. In silicon the possibility of making high quality electrical contacts seems quite evident. This, however, is not entirely true for all the experimental requirements since the definition of 'high quality' electrical contacts strongly depends on the type of investigation. Moreover high quality contacts can be usually obtained with metal-semiconductor alloying, but thermal processes are not desirable when the material defective states play a key role in the measurement. Subject of this contribution is the investigation on electrical contacts made on n-type silicon at room temperature.