Realization of the Kelvin Probe System for the Surface Treatment of a Semiconductor

Authors C. Zegadi1 , Z. Lounis2, A. Haichour1 , A. Hadjaddour2, D. Ghaffor2
Affiliations

1Micro and Nanophysics Laboratory (LaMiN), National Polytechnic School of Oran, ENP Oran-Maurice AUDIN, BP1523 El-Mnaouer, 31000 Oran, Algeria

2LABMAT, National Polytechnic School of Oran, ENP Oran Maurice AUDIN, Oran, Algeria

Е-mail chawki.zegadi@enp-oran.dz
Issue Volume 12, Year 2020, Number 4
Dates Received 12 April 2020; revised manuscript received 20 August 2020; published online 25 August 2020
Citation C. Zegadi, Z. Lounis, et al., J. Nano- Electron. Phys. 12 No 4, 04014 (2020)
DOI https://doi.org/10.21272/jnep.12(4).04014
PACS Number(s) 07.79. − v, 73.40.Cg, 68.37. − d
Keywords Contact potential difference, Kelvin probe, MIS structure, Surface phenomena.
Annotation

The knowledge of the electrical properties of materials is inevitable in surface technologies, such as microtechnology, corrosion, etc. Concerning the surface phenomena, the work function represents the main property. It was developed by Lord Kelvin and it corresponds to the contact potential difference between two surfaces of materials. In this project, the data acquisition of Kelvin Probe System (KPS) was performed after sequential tests in electronic computing and physical fields in order to acquire the work function of conductor and semiconductor materials. This system has revealed the great importance of controlling the support voltage Vb calculating the capacitor applied to the Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor (MIS) structure in order to measure the surface potential of the semiconductors. Some problems were solved during the assembly of the system and the pertinent frequency of 50 Hz was suitably adjusted. However, the conversion of current-voltage was not carried out in KPS due to the insensitivity of the amplifiers on hand. To understand this difficulty in signal experimental study, we have used a calculation by a Fortran code. The latter has confirmed that the signal of Kelvin probe is a very weak amplitude of the order of pico-volts. Because of the available measuring devices whose sensitivity is much lower than the signal itself, on the other hand, these results justify the experimental steps.

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