The investigation of nanoscale effects on schottky interfaces and the scattering rates of high resistivity metals

Understanding the transport of electrons through materials and across interfaces is fundamental to modern day electronics. As electrons travel, interactions with defects within the crystal lattice induce scattering which gives rise to resistivity. At the interface between two materials, electrostatic barriers exist which can impede the flow of electrons. The work of this thesis is to further the understanding of electron transport by measuring the transport across metal-semiconductor interfaces at the nanoscale and measure scattering phenomena in metals. The measurement technique ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) was used due to its ability to probe the scattering processes within a metal film and across metal semiconductor interfaces with nanoscale resolution.;It was discovered that the hot electron transmission of the W/Si(001) Schottky barrier decreases over a period of 21 days with the initial Schottky barrier height of 0.71eV decreasing to 0.62eV. The spatial map changes dramatically from 98% of the spectra able to be fit to only 27%. This is supported by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showing the formation of a tungsten silicide which increases in thickness.;It was discovered that the deposition of tungsten on silicon using electron beam evaporation and RF magnetron sputtering resulted in dramatic differences in the Schottky barrier height and transport of hot electrons. A difference of ∼70meV was measured in the Schottky barrier height's for both p-type and n-type silicon. Spatial maps show a uniform barrier height for the sputter film and varying barrier height for the e-beam film. Histograms show a symmetric gaussian profile for the sputtered film and an asymmetric profile for the evaporated film, arising from an increase in elastic scattering.;The hot electron attenuation length of tungsten and chromium thin films were measured on Si(001) and Si(111) substrates. An attenuation length of 2.26nm was measured at 1.0V bias for tungsten and 0.33nm at 1.0V bias for chromium. An inverse relation between the bulk resistivity of several metals and the measured hot electron attenuation length is observed, which demonstrates that these hot electrons are sensitive to intrinsic scattering mechanisms within metals.