As Equation (1) above shows, a precise knowledge of the total diode area is required the determination of the SBH by the I-V method. For diodes whose areas are not known, the SBH can still be determined by studying the temperature dependence of the junction current. The current under study can be recorded at different temperature for a specific bias voltage, preferably chosen within the linear portion of the single-temperature I-V curve (see above figure). Frequently, people prefer to study the temperature dependence of the "saturation current" because this current is the "forward" component of the total current at zero bias. (At zero applied bias voltage, the total diode current vanishes, as a result of the cancellation of the current flowing in the forward direction with that flowing in the reverse direction.) The logarithm of (I*T^-2) can be plotted in a "Richardson plot" against the inverse temperature (T^-1), as shown below. The SBH is the sum of the measured activation energy from such a plot and the fixed applied bias used in the experiment.

In capacitance-voltage experiments, the high frequency (>500kHz) capacitance of uniformly-doped Schottky diodes is measured as a function of the applied bias voltage. These measurements are usually done in the reverse bias to reduce the influence of the in-phase current on the measurement. By plotting the inverse of the junction capacitance against the applied bias, one can determine the "flat-band" voltage by a linear extrapolation to the voltage axis. For example, for an n-type semiconductor, the SBH is