Reverse current conduction mechanism of transient voltage suppression diode under electrostatic discharge stress

A transient voltage suppression (TVS) diode with abrupt junctions was fabricated using low-temperature epitaxy. The effect of electrostatic discharge (ESD) stress on the reverse leakage current conductive mechanism of the TVS diode was investigated using IEC61000-4-2 (IEC) standard analysis, in accordance with temperature-dependent current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. The fabricated TVS diode showed excellent ESD robustness, with negligible degradation up to ±19.5 kV and failure at ±20 kV stress. The ESD stress evidently led to the generation of shallow and deep defect states in the depletion region located 0.521.08 eV below the conduction band, and these states served as a main contributor to the resulting reverse leakage current. In devices to which IEC peak voltage stresses of less than ±19.5 kV had been applied, reverse conduction was dominated by generation-recombination current; the application of the ±20 kV failure stress caused reverse conduction to become dominated by a combination of tunneling current via deep defects and Poole-Frenkel barrier lowering. The proposed TVS can serve as a highly stable and reliable ESD protector of electronic components, serving an evolving need in nanoscale technology.