Plasma-assisted surface treatment for low-temperature annealed ohmic contact on AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors

In this study, a low-temperature annealed ohmic contact process was proposed on Al Ga N/Ga N heterostructure field effect transistors(HFETs) with the assistance of inductively coupled plasma(ICP) surface treatment. The effect of ICP treatment process on the 2DEG channel as well as the formation mechanism of the low annealing temperature ohmic contact was investigated. An appropriate residual Al Ga N thickness and a plasma-induced damage are considered to contribute to the low-temperature annealed ohmic contact. By using a single Al layer to replace the conventional Ti/Al stacks, ohmic contact with a contact resistance of 0.35 ?·mm was obtained when annealed at 575?C for 3 min. Good ohmic contact was also obtained by annealing at 500?C for 20 min.     

Design of vertical diamond Schottky barrier diode with junction terminal extension structure by using the n-Ga2O3/p-diamond heterojunction

A novel junction terminal extension structure is proposed for vertical diamond Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) by using an n-Ga₂O₃/p-diamond heterojunction. The depletion region of the heterojunction suppresses part of the forward current conduction path, which slightly increases the on-resistance. On the other hand, the reverse breakdown voltage is enhanced obviously because of attenuated electric field crowding. By optimizing the doping concentration, length, and depth of n-Ga₂O₃, the trade-off between on-resistance and breakdown voltage with a high Baliga figure of merit (FOM) value is realized through Silvaco technology computer-aided design simulation. In addition, the effect of the work functions of the Schottky electrodes is evaluated. The results are beneficial to realizing a high-performance vertical diamond SBD.     

Hybrid-anode structure designed for a high-performance quasi-vertical GaN Schottky barrier diode

A quasi-vertical GaN Schottky barrier diode with a hybrid anode structure is proposed to trade off the on-resistance and the breakdown voltage. By inserting a SiN dielectric between the anode metal with a relatively small length, it suppresses the electric field crowding effect without presenting an obvious effect on the forward characteristics. The enhanced breakdown voltage is ascribed to the charge-coupling effect between the insulation dielectric layer and GaN. On the other hand, the current density is decreased beneath the dielectric layer with the increasing length of the SiN, resulting in a high on-resistance. Furthermore, the introduction of the field plate on the side wall forms an metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) channel and decreases the series resistance, but also shows an obvious electric field crowding effect at the bottom of the mesa due to the quasi-vertical structure.     

Evaluation of a gate-first process for AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors with low ohmic annealing temperature

In this paper, TiN/AlO_x gated Al Ga N/Ga N metal–oxide–semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors(MOSHFETs) were fabricated for gate-first process evaluation. By employing a low temperature ohmic process, ohmic contact can be obtained by annealing at 600℃ with the contact resistance approximately 1.6 ?·mm. The ohmic annealing process also acts as a post-deposition annealing on the oxide film, resulting in good device performance. Those results demonstrated that the TiN/AlO_x gated MOS-HFETs with low temperature ohmic process can be applied for self-aligned gate Al Ga N/Ga N MOS-HFETs.     

Self-aligned-gate AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistor with titanium nitride gate

Self-aligned-gate heterostructure field-effect transistor(HFET) is fabricated using a wet-etching method.Titanium nitride(TiN) is one kind of thermal stable material which can be used as the gate electrode.A Ti/Au cap layer is fixed on the gate and acts as an etching mask.Then the T-shaped gate is automatically formed through over-etching the TiN layer in 30% H_2O_2 solution at 95 ℃.After treating the ohmic region with an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) method,an Al layer is sputtered as an ohmic electrode.The ohmic contact resistance is approximately 0.3 Ω·mm after annealing at a low-temperature of 575 ℃ in N_2 ambient for 1 min.The TiN gate leakage current is only 10~(-8) A after the low-temperature ohmic process.The access region length of the self-aligned-gate(SAG) HFET was reduced from 2 μm to 0.3 μm compared with that of the gate-first HFET.The output current density and transconductance of the device which has the same gate length and width are also increased.     

Effect of anode area on the sensing mechanism of vertical GaN Schottky barrier diode temperature sensor

Effect of anode area on temperature sensing ability is investigated for a vertical GaN Schottky-barrier-diode sensor. The current-voltage-temperature characteristics are comparable to each other for Schottky barrier diodes with different anode areas, excepting the series resistance. In the sub-threshold region, the contribution of series resistance on the sensitivity can be ignored due to the relatively small current. The sensitivity is dominated by the current density. A large anode area is helpful for enhancing the sensitivity at the same current level. In the fully turn-on region, the contribution of series resistance dominates the sensitivity. Unfortunately, a large series resistance degrades the temperature error and linearity, implying that a larger anode area will help to decrease the series resistance and to improve the sensing ability.     

Normally-off AlGaN/GaN heterojunction field-effect transistors with in-situ AlN gate insulator

AlGaN/GaN heterojunction field-effect transistors (HFETs) with p-GaN cap layer are developed for normally-off operation, in which an in-situ grown AlN layer is utilized as the gate insulator. Compared with the SiN_x gate insulator, the AlN/p-GaN interface presents a more obvious energy band bending and a wider depletion region, which helps to positively shift the threshold voltage. In addition, the relatively large conduction band offset of AlN/p-GaN is beneficial to suppress the gate leakage current and enhance the gate breakdown voltage. Owing to the introduction of AlN layer, normally-off p-GaN capped AlGaN/GaN HFET with a threshold voltage of 4 V and a gate swing of 13 V is realized. Furthermore, the field-effect mobility is approximately 1500 cm²·V^-1·s^-1 in the 2DEG channel, implying a good device performance.     

Temperature-Dependent Characteristics of GaN Schottky Barrier Diodes with TiN and Ni Anodes

The effect of temperature on the characteristics of gallium nitride (GaN) Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with TiN and Ni anodes is evaluated. With increasing the temperature from 25 to 175℃, reduction of the turn-on voltage and increase of the leakage current are observed for both GaN SBDs with TiN and Ni anodes. The performance after thermal treatment shows much better stability for SBDs with Ti N anode, while those with Ni anode change due to more interface states. It is found that the leakage currents of the GaN SBDs with TiN anode are in accord with the thermionic emission model whereas those of the GaN SBDs with Ni anode are much higher than the model. The Silvaco TCAD simulation results show that phonon-assisted tunneling caused by interface states may lead to the instability of electrical properties after thermal treatment, which dominates the leakage currents for GaN SBDs with Ni anode. Compared with GaN SBDs with Ni anode, GaN SBDs with TiN anode are beneficial to the application in microwave power rectification fields due to lower turn-on voltage and better thermal stability.     

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.