The influence of hydrostatic pressure up to 8 kbar on the barrier heig
ht of epitaxially MBE-grown Al on AlGaAs metal-semiconductor junctions
is reported. The pressure change of the Schottky barrier on n-type Al
GaAs is the same as that of the energy gap (for both direct and indire
ct-gap AlGaAs compositions), while for p-type AlGaAs it is negligible.
This result is in direct conflict with a class of models of the Schot
tky barrier formation based on a concept of a semiconductor neutrality
level alignment with the metal Fermi level.