Owing to outstanding properties of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and GaN-base material, such as high electron mobility and high critical electric field, AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) have been considered as the next-generation power semiconductor devices with high power conversion efficiency, high switching frequency and high-temperature operation capability. For power switching applications, enhancement mode (e-mode, or say normally-off) transistors are desired for fail-safe operation and silicon-compatible gate drive circuit. However, e-mode operation is difficult for AlGaN/GaN-based HEMTs because of the natural existence of 2DEG. To achieve e-mode operation, several approaches have been reported, including gate recess structure, fluorine plasma ion implantation, p-type gate structure and selective channel regrowth, etc. This paper reports normally-off AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with a recessed MOS-gate. After mesa isolation and Source and drain metal, the gate recess process used inductively coupled plasma (ICP). In order to avoid severe etching damage and obtain high drain current density, etching power was carefully optimized. The etching rate is slow for accurate etching depth control to leverage the current density and threshold voltage. After that, an O2 plasma treatment was applied using a plasma asher to oxidize the damaged semiconductor surface. The oxide layer was then removed in HCl: DI-water (1: 3). The next step is an atomic layer deposition (ALD) of Al 2 O 3 as the gate dielectric to increase the breakdown voltage. Follow after that, gate metal and pad metal. By the process, our team made three kinds of HEMTs with different recessed gate depths. The first one, which has been report before, exhibits a high threshold voltage of +4.6V, a specific on-resistance of 4mΩ-cm^2 and a drain current density of 108 mA/mm. This paper will show the others fabricated in the later researches. The device transfer curves show that this normally-off recessed MOS-gate AlGaN/GaN HEMTs exhibit threshold voltage of +0.9V and +2.1V, respectively. Additionally, the specific on-resistance and saturation drain current density of the device with 0.9V threshold voltage are 2.26mΩ-cm^2 and 326mA/mm, while 2.1V-Threshold Voltage-device are 3.03mΩcm^2 and 173mA/mm. Both of the two HEMTs have a breakdown voltage over 400V.
We demonstrate that low-fluence neutron irradiation can be a promising way to reduce the reverse leakage current of AlGaN/GaN heterostructures grown by MOCVD on sapphire substrates while maintaining other electronic properties almost unchanged.
GaN-based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are promising candidates for millimeter wave amplifiers above 100 GHz for 6G communications. To satisfy those requirements, a maximum oscillation frequency $(\mathbf{f}_{\max})$ surpassing 400 GHz is essential, necessitating the deployment of advanced down-scaling and patterning technologies. Through the utilization of electron beam lithography, ultra-scaled InAlN/GaN HEMTs on sapphire with T-gates with gate length of~60 nm and source-drain distance of~300 nm were fabricated, reaching $\mathrm{f}_{\max}$ over 420 GHz with a corresponding f T exceeding 150 GHz. To the best of the author's knowledge, these scaled HEMTs exhibit the highest fmax among reported HEMTs on sapphire.
We present a series of TCAD analysis of gallium nitride (GaN) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) that investigates the impact of various key parameters on the gain characteristics, output characteristics, and breakdown characteristics. It has been observed that the DC gain of the AlGaN/GaN HBTs exhibits a non-linear relationship with the increase in the Al fraction. Specifically, the DC gain initially rises, then declines after reaching its peak value at approximately 7%. By optimizing the concentration of the base and the concentration and thickness of the collector epitaxial layer, it is possible to achieve devices with breakdown voltages of 1270 V (with a collector thickness of 6 μm and a carrier concentration of 2 × 1016 cm−3), specific on-resistance of 0.88 mΩ·cm2, and a current gain of 73. In addition, an investigation on breakdown characteristics is conducted for HBTs with two types of substrates, namely QV-HBTs and FV-HBTs, at different inclinations of the ramp. We propose that critical angles are 79° and 69° to prevent the surface breakdown of the device, which helps to achieve an avalanche in GaN HBTs. We anticipate that the aforementioned findings will offer valuable insights for designing GaN-based power HBTs with elevated breakdown thresholds, heightened current densities, and increased power capabilities.
Abstract Intense terahertz (THz) electromagnetic fields have been utilized to reveal a variety of extremely nonlinear optical effects in many materials through nonperturbative driving of elementary and collective excitations. However, such nonlinear photoresponses have not yet been obeserved in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), let alone employing them as fast, cost-effective, compact, and room-temperature-operating THz detectors and cameras. Here, we report ubiquitously available LEDs exhibiting photovoltaic signals of ~0.8 V and ~2 ns response time with signal-to-noise ratios of ~1300 when being illuminated by THz field strengths ~240 kV/cm. We also demonstrated THz-LED detectors and camera prototypes. These unorthodox THz detectors exhibited high responsivities (>1 kV/W) with response time four orders of magnitude shorter than those of pyroelectric detectors. The mechanism was attributed to THz-field-induced impact ionization and Schottky contact. These findings not only help deepen our understanding of strong THz field-matter interactions but also contribute to the applications of strong-field THz diagnosis.
The impact of device parameters, including AlN film thickness (hAlN), number of interdigital transducers (NIDT), and acoustic propagation direction, on the performance of c-plane AlN/sapphire-based SAW temperature sensors with an acoustic wavelength (λ) of 8 μm, was investigated. The results showed that resonant frequency (fr) decreased linearly, the quality factor (Q) decreased and the electromechanical coupling coefficient (Kt2) increased for all the sensors with temperature increasing from -50 to 250 °C. The temperature coefficients of frequency (TCFs) of sensors on AlN films with thicknesses of 0.8 and 1.2 μm were -65.57 and -62.49 ppm/°C, respectively, indicating that a reduction in hAlN/λ favored the improvement of TCF. The acoustic propagation direction and NIDT did not obviously impact the TCF of sensors, but they significantly influenced the Q and Kt2 of the sensors. At all temperatures measured, sensors along the a-direction exhibited higher fr, Q and Kt2 than those along the m-direction, and sensors with NIDT of 300 showed higher Q and Kt2 values than those with NIDT of 100 and 180. Moreover, the elastic stiffness of AlN was extracted by fitting coupling of modes (COM) model simulation to the experimental results of sensors along different directions considering Euler transformation of material parameter-tensors. The higher fr of the sensor along the a-direction than that along the m-direction can be attributed to its larger elastic stiffness c11, c22, c44, and c55 values.
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