Synthesis of thermally stable HfO_xN_y as gate dielectric for AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors

In this paper, we adopted thermally stable HfO_xN_y as gate dielectric for TiN/HfO_xN_y/AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors(HFETs) application. It demonstrated that the surface morphologies, composition, and optical properties of the HfO_xN_y films were dependent on oxygen flow rate in the O_2/N_2/Ar mixture sputtering ambient. The obtained metal–oxide–semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors by depositing HfO_2 and HfO_xN_y dielectric at different oxygen flow rates possessed a small hysteresis and a low leakage current. After post deposition annealing at 900℃, the device using HfO_xN_y dielectric operated normally with good pinch-off characteristics, while obvious degradation are observed for the HfO_2 gated one at 600℃. This result shows that the HfO_xN_y dielectric is a promising candidate for the self-aligned gate process.