Sheet resistance

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The sheet resistance is a measure of resistance of thin films that are namely uniform in
thickness. It is commonly used to characterize materials made by semiconductor doping, metal
deposition, resistive paste printing, and glass coating. Examples of these processes are: doped
semiconductor regions (e.g. silicon or polysilicon), and the resistors which are screen printed
onto the substrates of thick film hybrid microcircuits.
The utility of sheet resistance, as opposed to resistance or resistivity, is that it is directly
measured using a four-terminal sensing measurement (also known as a four-point probe
measurement).

Contents
[hide]
• 1 Calculations
○ 1.1 Units
○ 1.2 For semiconductors
• 2 Measurement
• 3 References
○ 3.1 General references
• 4 External links

[edit] Calculations

Geometry for defining resistivity (left) and sheet resistance (right). In both cases, the current is
flowing parallel to the direction of the double-arrow near the letter "L".
Sheet resistance is applicable to two-dimensional systems where the thin film is considered to be
a two-dimensional entity. It is analogous to resistivity as used in three-dimensional systems.
When the term sheet resistance is used, the current must be flowing along the plane of the sheet,
not perpendicular to it.
In a regular three-dimensional conductor, the resistance can be written as
where ρ is the resistivity, A is the cross-sectional area and L is the length. The cross-sectional
area can be split into the width W and the sheet thickness t.
By grouping the resistivity with the thickness, the resistance can then be written as:

Rs is then the sheet resistance.

[edit] Units
Because the bulk resistance is multiplied by a dimensionless quantity to get sheet resistance, the
units of sheet resistance are ohms. An alternate, common unit is "ohms per square" (denoted
"Ω/sq" or " "), which is dimensionally equal to an ohm, but is exclusively used for sheet

resistance. This is an advantage, because a sheet resistance of "1Ω" could be taken out of context
and misinterpreted as a bulk resistance of 1 ohm, while a sheet resistance of "1Ω/sq" cannot be so
misinterpreted.
The reason for the name "ohms per square" is that a square sheet with sheet resistance 1
ohm/square has an actual resistance of 1 ohm, regardless of the size of the square. (For a square,
L = W, so RS = R.) The unit can be thought of as, loosely, "ohms per aspect ratio".
[edit] For semiconductors
For semiconductors doped through diffusion or surface peaked ion implantation we define the
sheet resistance using the average resistivity of the material:

which in materials with majority-carrier properties can be approximated by (neglecting intrinsic

charge carriers):

where xj is the junction depth, μ is the majority-carrier mobility, q is the carrier charge and N(x)
is the net impurity concentration in terms of depth. Knowing the background carrier
concentration NB and the surface impurity concentration the sheet resistance-junction depth
product Rsxj can be found using Irvin's curves, which are numerical solutions to the above
equation.
[edit] Measurement
A four point probe is used to avoid contact resistance, which can often be the same magnitude as
the sheet resistance. Typically a constant current is applied to two probes and the potential on the
other two probes is measured with a high impedance voltmeter. A geometry factor needs to be
applied according to the shape of the four point array. Two common arrays are square and in-
line. For more details see Van der Pauw method.
A very crude two point probe method is to measure resistance with the probes close together and
the resistance with the probes far apart. The difference between these two resistances will be the
order of magnitude of the sheet resistance.
[edit] References
[edit] General references
• Van Zant, Peter (2000). Microchip Fabrication. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 431–2.
ISBN 0-07-135636-3.
• Jaeger, Richard C. (2001). Introduction to Microelectronic Fabrication. New Jersey:
Prentice Hall. pp. 81–88. ISBN 0-201-44494-7.
[edit] External links
• Non-contact measurement of sheet resistivity Measuring the sheet resistance of of thin
conductive coatings on insulating substrates, e.g. metallized layers, wafer, ITO / CVD /
PVD
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheet_resistance"
Categories: Semiconductors
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