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To reveal the internal physics of the low-temperature mobility of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in Al-GaN/GaN heterostructures, we present a theoretical study of the strong dependence of 2DEG mobility on Al content and thickness of AlGaN barrier layer. The theoretical results are compared with one of the highest measured of 2DEG mobility reported for AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. The 2DEG mobility is modelled as a combined effect of the scattering mechanisms including acoustic deformation-potential, piezoelectric, ionized background donor, surface donor, dislocation, alloy disorder and interface roughness scattering. The analyses of the individual scattering processes show that the dominant scattering mechanisms are the alloy disorder scattering and the interface roughness scattering at low temperatures. The variation of 2DEG mobility with the barrier layer parameters results mainly from the change of 2DEG density and distribution. It is suggested that in AlGaN/GaN samples with a high Al content or a thick AlGaN layer, the interface roughness scattering may restrict the 2DEG mobility significantly, for the AlGaN/GaN interface roughness increases due to the stress accumulation in AlGaN layer.

In this paper, we present a two-dimensional (2D) fully analytical model with consideration of polarization effect for the channel potential and electric field distributions of the gate field-plated high electron mobility transistor (FP-HEMT) on the basis of 2D Poisson's solution. The dependences of the channel potential and electric field distributions on drain bias, polarization charge density, FP structure parameters, AlGaN/GaN material parameters, etc. are investigated. A simple and convenient approach to designing high breakdown voltage FP-HEMTs is also proposed. The validity of this model is demonstrated by comparison with the numerical simulations with Silvaco—Atlas. The method in this paper can be extended to the development of other analytical models for different device structures, such as MIS-HEMTs, multiple-FP HETMs, slant-FP HEMTs, etc.

Nonpolar (112?0) a-plane GaN films are grown by metal?organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) on r-plane (11?02) sapphire. The samples are irradiated with neutrons under a dose of 1 ? 1015 cm?2. The surface morphology, the crystal defects and the optical properties of the samples before and after irradiation are analysed using atomic force microscopy (AFM), high resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) and photoluminescence (PL). The AFM result shows deteriorated sample surface after the irradiation. Careful fitting of the XRD rocking curve is carried out to obtain the Lorentzian weight fraction. Broadening due to Lorentzian type is more obvious in the as-grown sample compared with that of the irradiated sample, indicating that more point defects appear in the irradiated sample. The variations of line width and intensity of the PL band edge emission peak are consistent with the XRD results. The activation energy decreases from 82.5 meV to 29.9 meV after irradiation by neutron.