Pressure Dependence of the Barrier Height in Tunnel n-GaAs/Au Junctions

The theory of tunnel current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of metal-semiconductor junctions based on the self-consistent solution of Poisson equation allows to get the Schottky-barrier height and the charged impurity concentration directly from the tunneling data. This approach was applied to the analysis of the low temperature experiments on tunneling under pressure up to 3 GPa in a piston-cylinder gauge. Here we present the barrier height versus pressure for heavily doped tunnel junctions and compare the obtained pressure dependence of the Schottky barrier with known behavior of the band gap under pressure taking into account the influence of the L- and X-valleys and DX centers.