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A comprehensive study on dynamic characteristics of GaN MISHEMT with a 5nm-thick in-situ SiNx dielectric is presented. Effects of both negative and positive gate bias on threshold voltage instability were investigated and miniature threshold voltage shift was acquired. The slight shift was considered to be associated with the traps at the insulator/AlGaN interface and in the dielectric layer itself. Pulsed I-V measurements with various gate quiescent biases presented small current collapse (11%) and low enhancement of dynamic Ron for zero quiescent drain bias. When drain quiescent bias was strengthened to 20V, an increased dynamic Ron/static Ron ratio was identified but still limited to a low value of 1.24. The conduction reduction was in a good agreement with measurement results from drain current transient spectroscopy and possibly originates from trap states existed in the access region. Additional current collapse was observed in hard switching-on operation, resulted from energetic hot electrons accelerated by drain-source electrical field during the off-to-on step. The measurement results showed stabilized threshold voltage, a low dynamic Ron/static Ron ratio, and suppressed current collapse via employing a 5-nm thin in-situ SiNx layer in GaN MISHEMT, enabling it a promising solution for high-efficiency power switching applications.

Dynamic characteristics of GaN HEMT grown on a native substrate were systematically investigated at 300K and 150K. Transfer and output characteristics of the GaN HEMT were measured after various off-state stressing conditions and recovery durations. In addition, a high-speed scheme was employed to finish the measurement within $75~\mu \text{s}$ , and to ensure maximum preservation of stressing/recovery consequences. The threshold voltage instability and current collapse commonly observed at room temperature were mostly diminished at 150K, which was attributed to reduced number of electrons through the metal-semiconductor contact and insufficient number of carriers overcoming the capture potential barrier. Two pulsed I-V measurements, including evaluations with various off-state quiescent bias points and “on-the-fly” on-resistance sampling, confirmed an inefficient electron capture process at 150K, with a time constant larger than dozens of seconds. The output characteristic comparison between hard switch and soft switch at 150K provided direct experimental evidence for electron capture promotion by hot carriers.

Structural and electronic properties of Zn-doped cubic boron nitride (cBN) were investigated via first principle calculation based on density functional theory. Our simulation suggests that Zn can substitute for both B (ZnB) and N (ZnN) atom; ZnB is energetically favorable, and ZnN can only be prepared under B-rich conditions. ZnB induced a shallow acceptor level; however, the large difference in electronegativity between Zn and N makes the acceptor level strongly localized, which reduces effective carrier density. In the case of ZnN, both deep acceptor levels within band gap and shallow acceptor levels at the top of valence band were induced, which produced more free carriers than ZnB. The calculated results account for experimental results of enhanced electric conductivity of Zn-doped cBN films prepared under B-rich conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report high performance ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors (PDs) based on p-GaN-gated AlGaN/GaN heterostructures grown on silicon substrates. Benefitting from the high electrical gain resulting from the transistor-like operation of the device, a photocurrent as high as 4.8mA/mm was achieved with UV illumination. Due to the effective depletion of the two-dimensional electron gas at the AlGaN/GaN heterointerface via a p-GaN optical gate, the dark current was suppressed to below 3x10-8mA/mm. A high photo-to-dark current ratio over 108 and a high responsivity of 2 x 104 A/W were demonstrated in the device. Moreover, with a cutoff wavelength of 395 nm, the PDs exhibited an ultrahigh UV-to-visible rejection ratio of over 107. Limited by a persistent photoconductivity effect, the rise time and fall time of the device frequency response were measured to be 12.2 ms and 8.9 ms, respectively. The results suggest the potential of the proposed PDs for high-sensitivity UV detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, monolithic integration of InGaN/GaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) with vertical metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (VMOSFET) drivers have been proposed and demonstrated. The VMOSFET was achieved by simply regrowing a p- and n-GaN bilayer on top of a standard LED structure. After fabrication, the VMOSFET is connected with the LED through the conductive n-GaN layer, with no need of extra metal interconnections. The junction-based VMOSFET is inherently an enhancement-mode (E-mode) device with a threshold voltage of 1.6 V. By controlling the gate bias of the VMOSFET, the light intensity emitted from the integrated VMOSFET-LED device could be well modulated, which shows great potential for various applications, including solid-state lighting, micro-displays, and visible light communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the use of SiNx grown in situ by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition as the gate dielectric for AlN/GaN metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) structures. Two kinds of trap states with different time constants were identified and characterized. In particular, the SiNx/AlN inter-face exhibits remarkably low trap state densities in the range of 1011-1012 cm-2 eV-1Transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses revealed that the in situ SiNx layer can provide excellent passivation without causing chemical degradation to the AlN surface. These results imply the great potential of in situ SiNx as an effective gate dielectric for AlN/GaN MIS devices [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an investigation of in situ SiNx gate dielectric grown on AlN/GaN heterostructures by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. It is revealed that the in situ SiNx is Si-rich, with a N/Si ratio of 1.21 and a relatively high effective dielectric constant of ~8.3. The 7nm in situ SiNx film exhibited a large resistivity of >1014 Ω· cm and a breakdown field of 5.7 MV/cm. Furthermore, interface trapping effects in the in situ SiNx/AlN/GaN heterostructures were investigated by frequency dependent conductance analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an InGaN/GaN light emitting diode (LED) structure, monolithically integrated vertical driving metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) were designed and experimentally implemented using a selective area growth (SAG) method. A simple p-GaN/n-GaN stack was selectively regrown on top of the LED wafer to realize an n/p/n structure for the vertical MOSFET fabrication. The integrated vertical MOSFET, which can effectively modulate the injection current through the serially connected LED, exhibited high performance such as an enhancement-mode (E-mode) operation with a relatively high output current density. However, on-resistance (RON) degradation was observed in the fabricated vertical MOSFET at a low drain bias level (VDS < 2 V). Through a 2D TCAD simulation, the origin of the high RON was revealed to be an electron barrier induced by the LED’s p-AlGaN electron blocking layer (EBL). The simulation results also demonstrated that it can be improved by band engineering of the EBL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, ZrO2 dielectric deposition on pristine monolayer MoS2 by atomic layer deposition (ALD) is demonstrated and ZrO2/MoS2 top-gate MOSFETs have been fabricated. ALD ZrO2 overcoat, like other high-k oxides such as HfO2 and Al2O3, was shown to enhance the MoS2 channel mobility. As a result, an on/off current ratio of over 107, a subthreshold slope of 276 mV dec−1, and a field-effect electron mobility of 12.1 cm2 V−1 s−1 have been achieved. The maximum drain current of the MOSFET with a top-gate length of 4 μm and a source/drain spacing of 9 μm is measured to be 1.4 μA μm−1 at VDS = 5 V. The gate leakage current is below 10−2 A cm−2 under a gate bias of 10 V. A high dielectric breakdown field of 4.9 MV cm−1 is obtained. Gate hysteresis and frequency-dependent capacitance–voltage measurements were also performed to characterize the ZrO2/MoS2 interface quality, which yielded an interface state density of ∼3 × 1012 cm−2 eV−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on the reduction of off-state leakage current in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) by a two-step process combining pre-gate surface treatment and post-gate annealing (PGA), which suppressed the two leakage paths, namely, lateral surface leakage and vertical tunneling leakage, separately. The lateral surface leakage current, which was mainly induced by the high-density trap states generated during the device isolation etching process, was significantly reduced by a low power O2-plasma and HCl surface treatment process. The PGA process reduced the vertical tunneling leakage current by improving the Schottky contact quality of the transistor gate. Consequently, the device off-state leakage current was decreased by about 7 orders of magnitude and no degradation was introduced to the on-state performance, leading to a high on/off current ratio of 1010 and steep subthreshold slope (SS) of 62 mV/dec. The origin and leakage suppression mechanisms are also investigated and discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on a study of AlGaN/GaN heterostructure lateral Schottky barrier diodes (L-SBDs) grown on a bulk GaN substrate. The L-SBDs exhibited an ultralow reverse leakage current below 10−6 A/cm2 without employing any extra treatments, which was over 4 orders of magnitude lower than that of a reference device on a sapphire substrate. The superior performance was attributed to the high crystalline quality of the heterostructure achieved by homoepitaxy. The comparison also revealed that the absence of high-density trap states in the homoepitaxial L-SBD grown on the bulk GaN substrate played a key role in achieving a low reverse leakage current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SiNx grown in situ by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) has shown great potential as a high-quality gate dielectric and surface passivation for AlN/GaN heterostructure transistors. In this paper, we present a thorough study on how the growth conditions affect the film quality of SiNx and correlate the observed material properties with the electrical characteristics of the heterostructures. Lowering the growth pressure and SiH4/NH3 ratio can improve the SiNx/AlN interface roughness, leading to a reduced interfacial trap state density. The gate leakage current can be suppressed by increasing the resistivity of SiNx, which can be tailored with growth temperature and SiH4/NH3 ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]