Investigation of the high-frequency noise and volt-ampere characteristics of Schottky-barrier diodes at high forward currents

A divergence between experimentally determined values of the volt-ampere characteristics and high-frequency noise of Schottky-barrier diodes at high forward currents (where the values of barrier resistance and diode series resistance are commensurate) has been remarked. It is shown that the main factor determining this divergence is the heating of current carriers in the diode base. The heating leads to the appearance of excess diode noise (due to the increasing series-resistance thermal noise), and to an increase in the series resistance and the distortion of the volt-ampere characteristics of the diode. For diodes with a small contact diameter based on highly doped material, the behavior of the volt-ampere characteristics and the growth of noise can be substantially affected by local heating and the increase of the ideality index with current, determined by different defects of the contact structure.