Substrates comprising heteroepitaxially grown single-crystalline diamond epilayers were used to fabricate pseudovertical Schottky diodes. These consisted of Ti/Pt/Au contacts on p− Boron-doped diamond (BDD) layers (1015–1016 cm−3) with varying thicknesses countered by ohmic contacts on underlying p+ layers (1019–1020 cm−3) on the quasi-intrinsic diamond starting substrate. Whereas the forward current exhibited a low-voltage shunt conductance and, for higher voltages, thermionic emission behavior with systematic dependence on the p− film thickness, the reverse leakage current appeared to be space-charge-limited depending on the existence of local channels and thus local defects, and depending less on the thickness. For the Schottky barriers ϕSB, a systematic correlation to the ideality factors n was observed, with an “ideal” n = 1 Schottky barrier of ϕSB = 1.43 eV. For the best diodes, the breakdown field reached 1.5 MV/cm.
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