Electrical and Optical Characterization of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with In Situ and Ex Situ Deposited SiN^sub x^ Layers

A comparative study of AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) surface passivation using ex situ and in situ deposited SiN^sub x^ is presented. Performing ex situ SiN^sub x^ passivation increased the reverse gate leakage and off-state channel leakage by about three orders of magnitude. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of electronic materials Vol. 39; no. 11; p. 2452
Main Authors Tadjer, Marko J, Anderson, Travis J, Hobart, Karl D, Mastro, Michael A, Hite, Jennifer K, Caldwell, Joshua D, Picard, Yoosuf N, Kub, Fritz J, Eddy, Charles R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Warrendale Springer Nature B.V 01.11.2010
Subjects
Electroluminescence
Switching
Temperature
Thermography
Transistors
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Summary:A comparative study of AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) surface passivation using ex situ and in situ deposited SiN^sub x^ is presented. Performing ex situ SiN^sub x^ passivation increased the reverse gate leakage and off-state channel leakage by about three orders of magnitude. The in situ SiN^sub x^ layer was characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and capacitance-voltage (CV) measurements. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra indicated a reduction of nonradiative recombination centers in in situ SiN^sub x^-passivated samples, indicating improved crystal quality. CV measurements indicated a reduction of surface state density as well, and thus better overall passivation using in situ SiN^sub x^. Electroluminescence (EL) images of the channel regions in AlGaN/GaN HEMT devices operating in forward blocking mode with up to 400 V drain bias demonstrated reduced channel emission profiles of in situ-passivated devices. Compared with a nonpassivated reference sample, the reduced EL emission profiles correlated with a reduced channel temperature on ex situ SiN^sub x^-passivated devices. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0361-5235
1543-186X