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We report the comparison of the atomic layer deposited polycrystalline (p-)/amorphous (a-) HfO2 bilayer gate dielectric with p-HfO2/a-Al2O3 for enhanced $\beta $ -Ga2O3 metal oxide semiconductor capacitors (MOSCAPs). A discrepancy in the temperature-dependent hysteretic behaviors is observed, and thus, pulse capacitance–voltage ( ${C}$ – ${V}$ ) measurements are employed to investigate interface properties at the border between the amorphous (Al2O3 or HfO2) and polycrystalline (HfO2) oxide layers. The proposed p-HfO2 /a-HfO2 exhibits similar interface trap densities ( ${D}_{\text {it}}$ ) at the interface between the bilayer dielectric and $\beta \text {-Ga}_{{2}}\text {O}_{{3}}$ , and shows lower border trap density ( ${N}_{\text {bt}}$ ). An effective barrier height of 1.62 eV for the p-HfO2 /a-HfO2 with a breakdown field of 9.1 MV/cm, which is higher than 1.01 eV of p-HfO2 /a-Al2O3, is obtained from the current density-voltage ( ${J}$ – ${V}$ ) characteristics using the Folwer–Nordheim model. Moreover, as compared with a p-HfO2 single layer, the additional a-HfO2 layer on top of p-HfO2 is beneficial to improve hysteretic and leakage characteristics, while maintaining its high-quality interface. The p-HfO2/a-HfO2 bilayer with improved interface properties as well as a large positive flat-band voltage of 4.7 V is a promising candidate for the metal/high- ${k}$ stack of $\beta $ -Ga2O3 MOSCAPs.

Hydrogen fuel has attracted significant attention as an alternative clean energy for hydrogen vehicles and household fuel systems and has been expected to be pervasive. Thus, compact, low-power, and highly sensitive hydrogen sensors capable of being embedded in Internet-of-Things devices are in demand. In this work, an ultrahigh sensitive hydrogen sensor operating at room temperature based on the Pt-decorated graphene (Pt/Gr) gate AlGaN/GaN metal–insulator–semiconductor high electron mobility transistor (MIS-HEMT) is presented. The proposed unique gate structure of island-like Pt on graphene not only modulates the density of 2-D electron gas (2DEG) but also provides efficient diffusion of hydrogen ions into the gate even at very low concentrations ( $\sim 1.6\times 10^{7}$ in a hydrogen concentration of 1000 ppm at room temperature. Upon exposure of at most 1 ppm hydrogen gas, the current increases significantly by a factor of 15.4, exhibiting an unprecedentedly high hydrogen response. Furthermore, the proposed AlGaN HEMT architecture has an outstanding hydrogen selectivity and insensitivity to NH3, H2S, and CO gases at the same time.

Germanium (Ge) has gained great attention not only for future nanoelectronics but for back-end of line (BEOL) compatible monolithic three-dimensional (M3D) integration recently. For high performance and low power devices, various high-k oxide/Ge gate stacks including ferroelectric oxides have been investigated. Here, we demonstrate atomic layer deposited (ALD) polycrystalline (p-) HfO2/GeOX/Ge stack with an amorphous (a-) HfO2 capping layer. The consecutively deposited a-HfO2 capping layer improves hysteretic behaviors ( ${\Delta } {V}$ ) and interface state density ( $\text{D}_{\mathrm{ it}}$ ) of the p-HfO2/GeOX/Ge stack. Furthermore, leakage current density ( ${J}$ ) is significantly reduced $(\times 100)$ by passivating leakage paths through grain boundaries of p-HfO2. The proposed HfO2 layer with the graded crystallinity suggests possible high-k/Ge stacks for further optimized Ge MOS structures.

A transparent light emitting diode (LED) panel with a 16 × 16 multicolor LED array for a signage application is proposed and studied based on experimental and simulation results. As a transparent electrode, oxide/metal/oxide (OMO) trilayers with various Al interlayer thicknesses were fabricated and characterized using an established a simulation model. Using commercial ray tracing optical and SPICE simulation tools, we designed the LED panel and investigated in its optical and electrical properties. Moreover, in order to resolve the waveguide effect and voltage drop issue across the panel, we integrated additional optical structures and various OMO width into the design. The results show that the OMO electrode interconnects and proposed design considerations are pivotal aspects toward achieving transparent LED digital signage applications.

We demonstrate low subthreshold swing (SS) double-gate (DG) $\beta $ -Ga2O3 field-effect transistors (FETs) with polycrystalline hafnium oxide (HfO2) gate dielectrics. The atomic layer deposited HfO2 layer at an elevated temperature of 350 °C without post-deposition annealing has a polycrystalline structure. The threshold voltage is modulated from depletion- to enhancement-mode by independently controlled bottom-gate bias. The SS is reduced to as low as 64 mV/dec with mobility of 20 cm2/ $\text{V}\cdot \text{s}$ while maintaining a high ON/OFF ratio of $10^{{7}}$ and negligible hysteresis of 30 mV via double-gate operation. The device shows an ON/OFF ratio of $10^{{6}}$ and the SS of 320 mV/dec up to an operating temperature of 250 °C and the OFF-state breakdown voltage of 355 V. The demonstrated DG $\beta $ -Ga2O3 FETs with the polycrystalline HfO2 layer is a promising structure for energy efficient high temperature device and circuit applications.

Beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) is an emerging ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor material for high-power devices. However, one of the major drawbacks is the low thermal conductivity resulting in poor heat dissipation, and the so-called self-heating effect reduces carrier mobility and drain current degradation, and even causes a device reliability issue. Here, we propose a bottom-gate β-Ga2O3 field-effect transistor with a hexagonal boron-nitride (h-BN) gate-insulator and investigate the self-heating effect in comparison with an aluminum oxide (Al2O3) insulator using physics-based TCAD simulations. The h-BN with high thermal conductivity reduces the lattice temperature of the β-Ga2O3 channel and decreases drain current degradation. Furthermore, as the thickness of the insulator decreases below 50 nm and the channel length is scaled down to 5 μm, the reduced self-heating effect becomes more prominent. The results imply that the highly thermal-conductive h-BN insulator is promising for achieving high performance β-Ga2O3 metal insulator semiconductor field-effect transistor (MISFET) with the bottom-gate configuration.

Interface traps between a gate insulator and beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) channel are extensively studied because of the interface trap charge-induced instability and hysteresis. In this work, their effects on mobility degradation at low temperature and hysteresis at high temperature are investigated by characterizing electrical properties of the device in a temperature range of 20–300 K. As acceptor-like traps at the interface are frozen below 230 K, the hysteresis becomes negligible but simultaneously the channel mobility significantly degrades because the inactive neutral traps allow additional collisions of electrons at the interface. This is confirmed by the fact that a gate bias adversely affects the channel mobility. An activation energy of such traps is estimated as 170 meV. The activated trap charges’ trapping and de-trapping processes in response to the gate pulse bias reveal that the time constants for the slow and fast processes decrease due to additionally activated traps as the temperature increases.

We report on the effect of Al2O3 surface passivation on electrical properties of beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) nanomembrane field-effect transistor (FET). The fabricated bottom-gate β -Ga2O3(100) FET exhibits enhanced channel conductance and reduced hysteresis after the conformal atomic layer deposited Al2O3 passivation investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HR-TEM) analysis. Moreover, abnormal positive threshold voltage (VTH) shifts under negative bias stress are turned into negative VTH shifts, and off-state breakdown characteristics is improved as well. A modeling work using physics-based TCAD shows reduced surface depletion effect after the surface passivation. The results demonstrate that high-quality ALD-Al2O3 surface passivation is an effective method to improve electrical properties of the bottom-gate β-Ga2O3 FET and its device applications.

Solution-processed high-k oxide layer, which is typically deposited using atomic layer deposition (ALD), has been proposed and recently demonstrated on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field-effect transistors (FETs). In this report, we statistically investigate electrical performance of multilayer MoS2 FETs fabricated on sol-gel AlOX gate-dielectric. More than 10 sample devices with different MoS2 thickness are characterized and compared. For electrical parameters extraction, Y -function method is adopted in order to minimize S/D electrode contact-induced variations. In spite of the relatively rougher surface of the sol-gel AlOX film, no significant difference of electrical performance is observed. The sol-gel prepared AlOX can be considered as a promising high-k gate dielectric for high-performance large-area transistion metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) devices fabrication.

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field-effect transistor (FET)-based biosensors have attracted significant attention as promising candidates for highly sensitive, label-free biomolecule detection devices. In this paper, toward practical applications of biosensors, we demonstrate reliable and quantitative detection of a prostate cancer biomarker using the MoS2 FET biosensor in a nonaqueous environment by reducing nonspecific molecular binding events and realizing uniform chemisorption of anti-PSA onto the MoS2 surface. A systematic and statistical study on the capability of the proposed device is presented, and the biological binding events are directly confirmed and characterized through intensive structural and electrical analysis. Our proposed biosensor can reliably detect various PSA concentrations with a limit of 100 fg/mL. Moreover, rigorous theoretical simulations provide a comprehensive understanding of the operating mechanism of the MoS2 FET biosensors, and further suggests the enhancement of the sensitivity through engineering device design parameters.

We report a layer thickness-tunable direct synthesis growth method for bi- to few-layer crystalline molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) thin layers. For the first time, a facile, cost effective, and mass-scalable direct synthesis approach, based on a chemical bath deposition, is designed for quantum dot(QD)-based MoS2 layers using (NH4)6Mo7O24 and thiourea (CH4N2S) as precursors. Using this process, the uniformity of large area thin layer can be retained, and the applicability to various substrates can provide great opportunities in the fabrication of various atomically thin layered structures. The structural and optical properties of the MoS2 QD layers are systematically investigated. Raman, AFM and TEM analyses confirm the formation of continuous and crystalline bi-, tri- and few-layered MoS2. Their electrical properties are evaluated by bottom-gate FETs, and a field-effect mobility value of ~1.06 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a current on/off ratio in the order of ~ 105 are obtained. Particularly, MoS2 prepared as a thin film consisting QD structures of grains shows novel electrocatalytic property. MoS2 QDs on Au/Si are proven to be excellent electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction, featured by Tafel slope (94 mV decade−1), exchange current density (1.91×10-1 mA cm−2) and long-term durability for 20 h. Our approach opens new avenues for the design and synthesis of functional MoS2 layers for energy harvesting.

We propose nano-crystalline diamond (NCD) as a heteroepitaxial substrate for beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3), and investigate self-heating effect in β-Ga2O3 MOSFET on the NCD compared with a native Ga2O3 and other alternative substrate (SiC) using physics-based TCAD simulation. The NCD substrate with high thermal conductivity reduces a lattice temperature of β-Ga2O3 and thus mitigates drain current degradation. Furthermore, the benefits become more pronounced with device scaling. These results suggest that the low-cost NCD can be a promising heteroepitaxial substrate for β-Ga2O3 devices applications.

In this work, we demonstrate the lateral metal–oxidesemiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) with β-Ga2O3 film (thickness = 150 nm) grown on a c-plane sapphire substrate by a hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) method using a CF4-based plasma treatment. By incorporating fluorine (F) the electrical characteristics of the surface and bulk regions of the resistive β-Ga2O3 film could be significantly improved. The analyses by secondary ion mass spectrometry and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy confirmed the formation of the substitutional fluorine, FO, with its peak concentration of 2.3 × 1018 cm−3 at 5 ~ 10 nm deep from the surface and about 1015 ~ 1016 cm−3 in the bulk region. While the argon-plasma treatment was insufficient for making a Ti/Au/Ti metal contact ohmic, the same contact formed on the CF4-treated surface showed an ohmic behavior with specific resistivity of 2.0 × 10−3 Ω·cm2 and contact resistance of 0.8 Ω·m without any post thermal annealing. With the improvement of the electrical properties in both the surface and bulk regions, the HVEP-grown hetero-epitaxial β-Ga2O3 MOSFET exhibited the field-effect mobility of up to 5.3 cm2/V⋅s and on/off ratio of 106.

This paper was published with a typographical error in Acknowledgments on page 86. The grant number NRF-2019M3C1B909055 should read NRF-2019M3C1B9090559.

Polycrystalline HfO2 dielectrics grown on (−2 0 1) beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) using high temperature ALD process is investigated. A low capacitance–voltage (C-V) hysteresis of

We demonstrate a two-dimensional (2D) multilayered molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) transistor with molybdenum (Mo) side and edge contacts, which is deposited using a dc-sputtering method. It exhibits field-effect mobility of 23.9 cm $^{\mathrm {2}}$ /Vs and ON/OFF ratio of $10^{\mathrm { {6}}}$ in a linear region. A current–voltage study under different temperatures (300–393 K) reveals that the Mo–MoS2 transistor shows a band transport characteristics, and a Schottky barrier height of 0.14 eV is estimated using a thermionic emission theory. Finally, the side and edge contacts of Mo–MoS2 are confirmed through the transmission electron microscope analysis. Our results not only show that Mo can be an alternative contact metal to other low work-function metals but also that the edge contact may play an important role in resolving the performance degradation over thickness increase of the MoS2 channel layer.

Microdonut-shaped GaN/Inx Ga1-x N light-emitting diode (LED) microarrays are fabricated for variable-color emitters. The figure shows clearly donut-shaped light emission from all the individual microdonut LEDs. Furthermore, microdonut LEDs exhibit spatially-resolved blue and green EL colors, which can be tuned by either controlling the external bias voltage or changing the size of the microdonut LED.

We present a method of epitaxially growing thermodynamically stable gallium nitride (GaN) nanorods via metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) by invoking a two-step self-limited growth (TSSLG) mechanism. This allows for growth of nanorods with excellent geometrical uniformity with no visible extended defects over a 100 mm sapphire (Al2O3) wafer. An ex-situ study of the growth morphology as a function of growth time for the two self-limiting steps elucidate the growth dynamics, which show that formation of an Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier and preferential growth in the c-plane direction governs the growth process. This process allows monolithic formation of dimensionally uniform nanowires on templates with varying filling matrix patterns for a variety of novel electronic and optoelectronic applications. A color tunable phosphor-free white light LED with a coaxial architecture is fabricated as a demonstration of the applicability of these nanorods grown by TSSLG.

We fabricated and characterized hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) with a channel length of 10 on both spherical and flat surfaces using maskless laser-write lithography (LWL). In addition to the electrical performance, the threshold voltage shift of the a-Si:H TFT under bias-temperature stress is investigated and discussed in comparison to a device fabricated on a flat surface. The obtained results show that the a-Si:H TFTs fabricated by LWL method on a curved surface are suitable for pixel switches and circuits, which are needed to realize image sensor arrays and/or displays on a nonplanar surface.

We have demonstrated electrically and optically enhanced MoS2 phototransistors on a flexible polyarylate substrate using poly(4-vinylphenol) (PVP) as a gate dielectric as well as an encapsulation layer. With the PVP encapsulation, the field-effect mobility (μFE) increases up to twofold, and the subthreshold slope as well as the on/off ratio (ION/IOFF) improves, which are desirable features for the photoresponsive characteristics. Consequently, both photoresponsivity and detectivity increase up to two orders of magnitude (×100) from visible to infrared spectrum. Such enhancement is associated with the n-doping effect of hydroxyl groups in PVP and reduced recombination centers by filling interface traps and surface states. Our results reveal that the transparent PVP polymer can be a promising encapsulation method in order to enhance the electrical and photoresponsive characteristics of MoS2-based flexible devices.

We report on the design and fabrication methods for a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) on a non-planar substrate using laser-write lithography (LWL). Level-to-level alignment with a high accuracy is demonstrated using LWL method. The fabricated a-Si:H TFT exhibits a field-effect mobility of 0.27 cm2/V s, threshold voltage of 4.9 V and on/off current ratio of not, vert, similar6 × 106 in a saturation regime. The obtained results demonstrate that it is possible to fabricate the a-Si:H TFTs and complex circuitry on a curved surface, using a well-established a-Si:H TFT technology in combination with the maskless lithography, for hemispherical or non-planar sensor arrays.

We propose the use of nanostructured germanium (Ge) fabricated by simple metalassisted chemical (MAC) etching as a high-frequency optoacoustic ultrasound transmitter. As an acoustic transfer medium, an elastomeric polymer, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), is spin-coated on top of Ge nanostructures, which is prepared with three different thicknesses with various MAC etching time in order to compare optoacoustic conversion efficiency. Under pulsed laser excitation, the Ge transmitter generates ultrasound pressure of 7.5 times stronger than that of Cr reference with comparable high frequency spectra (primary: 15 MHz and 6dB roll-off at 27 MHz) to CNT-PDMS composite. Considering its simple fabrication process without substrate limitation, the nanostructured Ge overlaid with PDMS can offer a promising approach for a highly efficient optoacoustic transmitter and toward all-optical high-frequency ultrasound transducers. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America

In this letter, we study the current-temperature-stress-induced electrical instability of single and multiple hexagonal (HEX) hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) thin-film transistors (TFTs) connected in parallel. The influence of the threshold voltage shift of a single HEX TFT on the overall electrical performance of multiple HEX TFTs is discussed. The results indicate that a-Si:H HEX TFTs have an improved electrical stability and a threshold voltage shift linear dependence on a number of connected HEX-TFT units.

Using thin sub-stoichiometric molybdenum trioxide (MoOx, x

Vertically aligned InGaN/GaN nanorod (NR)-based phosphor-free light emitting diodes (LEDs) using SiO2 nanohole patterns are demonstrated. The highly ordered SiO2 nanoholes were realized on a 2 μm-thick n+GaN template by a two-step dry etching process. The use of C4F8/O2/Ar plasma chemistries under the low pressure is found to greatly enlarge the bottom diameter of each hole, exhibiting high aspect ratio (AR ∼ 9) and vertical etch profile (∼89°). SAG technique was used to define the height of the GaN NRs while the width is determined by the trimethylgallium flow rate and growth temperature. An LED structure consisted of three-pairs of InGaN/GaN quantum well and AlGaN electron blocking layer on the sidewall of the nanorod in a core-shell structure. The wavelengths were successfully tuned by controlling pitches of the rods, which was caused by the different growth rate and indium incorporation of conformally overgrown InGaN multiquantum wells. At the operating current density of 1.5 A/cm2 (65 mA), NR-based s...

Conventional ɑ-Si:H phototransistors exhibit poor photosensitivity due to low photo-conversion efficiency. To overcome this intrinsic limit, we introduce gate underlap in ɑ-Si:H phototransistors and demonstrate photosensitivity enhancement. We show that photocurrent can be significantly larger than dark current by 4 orders of magnitude, using 1-μm gate underlap at incident optical power density (Pinc) of 3.2 W/cm2. Our 1-μm gate-underlap phototransistor exhibits higher photosensitivity than the device without gate underlap by 64 times with Pinc = 0.2 W/cm2 and a wavelength of 785 nm. Our gate-underlapped phototransistors also show excellent time-resolved photoswitching behaviors, demonstrating the great potential for highly sensitive photodetectors.

Inverted stagger hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) fork-shaped thin-film transistors (TFTs) were fabricated with a five-photomask process used in the processing of the active-matrix liquid crystal displays (AM-LCDs). We investigated the asymmetric electrical characteristics of a fork-shaped a-Si:H TFT under different bias conditions. To extract the electrical device parameters, we developed asymmetric geometrical factors. Current-voltage measurements indicate that the ON-OFF current ratio of fork TFT can be enhanced significantly by choosing the outer electrode as the drain, while the field-effect mobility and threshold voltage have the identical values when different drain bias conditions are used. Finally, we developed concepts of its possible application to AM-LCDs.