This work reports a kilovolt and low current collapse normally-off GaN MOSHEMT on silicon substrate. The device with a drift length of 3 mum features a threshold voltage of 1.7 V and an output current of 430 mA/mm at 8 V gate bias. The off-state breakdown voltage (BV) is as high as 1021 V (800 V) defined at a drain leakage criterion of 10 muA/mm with floating (grounded) substrate. The corresponding breakdown electric field is 3.4 MV/cm and the Baliga's figure-of-merit (BFOM) is 1.6 GW/cm2. A small degradation of the dynamic on-resistance (Ron, d) about 30% is observed with a short pulse width of 500 ns and a quiescent drain bias of 60 V. The record value is supposed to benefit from the intrinsic step-graded field plate, high quality LPCVD Si3N4 passivation and material optimization of 4.5 mum thick epitaxial layer.

This paper reports a normally-off high voltage hybrid Al203/GaN gate-recessed MOSFET fabricated on silicon substrate. The normally off operation was implemented by digital gate recess using an oxidation and wet etching based AlGaN barrier remove technique. The Al203/GaN MOSFET features a true normally off operation with a threshold voltage of 2 V extracted by the linear extrapolation of the transfer curve. The three terminal off-state breakdown voltage is 1650 V for the device with 30 gm gate-drain distance with floating Si substrate. The breakdown voltage is limited to 1000 V when the Si substrate is grounded. The on-resistance is 7.0 m Omega cm(2) for the device with 30 gm gate-drain distance and the power figure of merit is 388 MW/cm2. The small signal RF performance of the normally-off GaN MOSFET is also evaluated.

In this work, the performance of GaN-based MOS-Channel-HEMTs (MOSC-HEMTs) are shown to be greatly improved by a thin ALD-grown AlN interfacial layer inserted between the amorphous Al2O3 gate dielectric and GaN-channel. The single-crystalline AlN interfacial layer effectively blocks oxygen from the GaN surface and avoids the formation of detrimental Ga-O bonds. Frequency-dispersion in C-V characteristics has been effectively suppressed. The maximum drain current and field-effect mobility are boosted from 410 mA/mm and 98 cm(2)/V.s in a conventional Al2O3/GaN MOSC-HEMT to 660 mA/mm and 165 cm(2)/V.s in an Al2O3/AlN/GaN MOSC-HEMT, owing to improved interface quality. The devices also deliver a high ON/OFF current ratio of similar to 10(10), and significantly reduced dynamic on-resistance degradation.

In this letter, we have demonstrated that the circular transmission linear model (Marlow's CTLM) is unsuitable for GaN HEMTs structure alloyed ohmic contact resistance evaluation. Very large spread is found in the extracted ohmic resistance values from measured data using the commonly used CTLM test patterns, and some of the contact resistances are found to be negative. We suspect that the stress induced by ohmic contact formation process is the culprit, preventing the use of CTLM test pattern for GaN HEMTs structure ohmic contact resistance evaluation, because of the strong piezoelectric induced polarization property of the hexagonal Ill-nitride heterojunction device structure. Meanwhile, measured ohmic contact resistance (R-c) and sheet resistance (R-sq) are found to exhibit good uniformity using a properly prepared linear transmission line model (LTLM) test pattern in which all the Gallium nitride material extended beyond the gaps between the ohmic contact electrodes are removed.

AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors (MOSHEMTs) with thick (>30 nm), high-kappa (TiO2/NiO), submicron-footprint (0.4 mu m) gate dielectric on SiC substrate are demonstrated, which are found to exhibit low gate leakage current (similar to 1 nA/mm of gate periphery), high I-MAX (1 A/mm), and high drain breakdown voltage (188 V). The derived current gain cutoff frequency is 30 GHz (from S-parameter measurements). The output power density is 6.6 W/mm, and the associated power-add ed-efficiency is 46% at 2.5 GHz frequency and 50 V drain bias. This high performance submicron-footprint MOSHEMT is highly promising for microwave power amplifier applications in communication and radar systems.

The diffusion properties of fluorine ions in GaN are investigated by means of Time-of-Flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy. Instead of incorporating fluorine ions close to the sample surface by plasma, fluorine ion implantation with an energy of 180 keV is utilized to implant fluorine ions deep into the GaN bulk, preventing the surface effects from affecting the data analysis. It is found that the diffusion of fluorine-ions in GaN is a dynamic process, featuring a two-step process. A defect-assisted diffusion model is proposed to account for the experimental observations. Fluorine ions tend to occupy Ga vacancies induced by fluorine ion implantation and diffuse to vacancy rich regions. The fluorine ions become stable after continuous vacancy chains are significantly reduced or removed by thermal annealing. (C) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Fluorine ions can be effectively incorporated into AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures, enabling the modulation of local potential and carrier density. The physical mechanism of fluorine incorporation in AlGaN/GaN heterojunctions is of fundamental importance to the stability of fluorine ions in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. In this work, the molecular dynamic (MD) simulation method is used to calculate the potential energies of interstitial and substitutional fluorine atoms in AlGaN/GaN material system. Ziegler-Biersack-Littmark (ZBL), Lindhard-Sorensen (L-S) and Coulomb potential functions are applied in the MD simulation. The geometric lattice structures, spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations, and temperature dependence are also included in the simulation. The activation energies associated with interstitial-substitutional and interstitial-interstitial diffusions are obtained. It is revealed that the fluorine ions are most likely located at the substitutional group-III cation sites S(III) and the diffusion of fluorine ions should be dominated by S(III)-interstitial process which exhibits an activation energy of 1.1 eV in Al(0.25)Ga(0.75)N and 1.4 eV in GaN in the presence of group-III vacancies. It is expected that the removal of group-III vacancies can significantly suppress the fluorine diffusion, which in turn, leads to excellent fluorine stability in III-nitride materials. (C) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Fluorine plasma ion implantation is a robust technique that enables shallow implantation of fluorine ions into group III-nitride epitaxial structures. This technique has been used to achieve robust threshold control of the AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) and. led to the realization of self-aligned enhancement-mode devices. To reveal the atomic scale interactions and provide a modeling tool for process design and optimization, a molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is conducted for carbon tetrafluoride (CF(4)) plasma implantation. Specific potential functions are applied to calculate the interactions among atoms and simulate the dynamics process of fluorine ions' penetration and stopping in III-nitride materials. The MD simulation provides accurate information on dopant profiles that are verified by secondary ion mass spectrum (SIMS) measurements. Defect formation and distributions, that are critical in process development, are also investigated. The MD simulation tool is capable of providing 2-dimensional fluorine dopant profiles.

The mechanisms of AlGaN/GaN HEMT's off-state breakdown are investigated. Both the source- and gate-injection induced impact ionizations are identified with the former leading to premature three-terminal breakdown. A 35% improvement of the breakdown voltage could be achieved in an enhanced back barrier HEMT by implanting fluorine ions under the channel region and effectively block the source injection through the buffer layer.

A hybrid molecular dynamics (MD)/kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) model is developed for atomistic modeling of fluorine ion implantation and diffusion in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. The MD simulation reveals the F distribution profiles and the corresponding defect profiles, and most importantly, the potential energies of fluorine ions in the III-nitride material system. Using the results from the MD simulation, the diffusion process is simulated with KMC method, and the modeling results are validated by the secondary-ion-mass-spectrum (SIMS) measurement. The surface effect on the fluorine's stability and its improvement by passivation are also successfully modeled.