Luo Weijun

Growth and Characterization of AlGaN/AlN/GaN HEMT Structures with a Compositionally Step-Graded AlGaN Barrier Layer

A new AlGaN/AlN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structure using a compositionally step-graded AlGaN barrier layer is grown on sapphire by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). The structure demonstrates significant enhancement of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) mobility and smooth surface morphology compared with the conventional HEMT structure with high Al composition AlGaN barrier. The high 2DEG mobility of 1806 cm(2)/Vs at room temperature and low rms surface roughness of 0.220 nm for a scan area of 5 mu m x 5 mu m are attributed to the improvement of interfacial and crystal quality by employing the step-graded barrier to accommodate the large lattice mismatch stress. The 2DEG sheet density is independent of the measurement temperature, showing the excellent 2DEG confinement of the step-graded structure. A low average sheet resistance of 314.5 Omega/square, with a good resistance uniformity of 0.68%, is also obtained across the 50 mm epilayer wafer. HEMT devices are successfully fabricated using this material structure, which exhibits a maximum extrinsic transconductance of 218 mS/mm and a maximum drain current density of 800 mA/mm.

An 8 GHz high power AlGaN/GaN HEMT VCO

A high power X-band hybrid microwave integrated voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) based on AlGaN/GaN HEMT is presented. The oscillator design utilizes a common-gate negative resistance structure with open and short-circuit stub microstrip lines as the main resonator for a high Q factor. The VCO operating at 20 V drain bias and −1.9 V gate bias exhibits an output power of 28 dBm at the center frequency of 8.15 GHz with an efficiency of 21%. Phase noise is estimated to be −85 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset and −128 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. The tuning range is more than 50 MHz. The dominating effect of GaN HEMTs flicker noise on oscillator phase noise performance has also been discussed. The measured results show great promise for AlGaN/GaN HEMT technology to be used in high power and low phase noise microwave source applications.

Stable Carbon Isotope Variations in Cave Percolation Waters and their Implications in Four Caves of Guizhou, China

: Monitoring and sampling of main plants, soil CO2, soil water, bedrock, spring water, drip water and its corresponding speleothem were performed at four cave systems of Guizhou, Southwest China, from April 2003 to May 2004, in order to understand stable carbon isotope ratios variations of dissolved inorganic Carbon (DIC) in cave percolation waters (δ13CDIC) and their implications for paleoclimate. Stable carbon isotopic compositions and ions (Ca, Mg, Sr, SO4, Cl etc.) were measured for all samples. The results indicate that there are significant differences among the δ13CDIC values from inter-cave, even inter-drip of intra-cave in the four caves. The δ13CDIC values from the Liangfeng Cave (LFC) is lightest among the four caves, where vegetation type overlying the cave is primary forest dominated by tall trees with lighter average δ13C value (−29.9‰). And there are remarkable differences in δ13CDIC values of different drip waters in the Qixing Cave (QXC) and Jiangjun Cave (JJC), up to 6.9‰ and 7.8‰, respectively. Further analyses show that the δ13CDIC values in cave drip waters are not only controlled by vegetation biomass overlying the cave, but also hydro-geochemical processes. Therefore, accurate interpreting of δ13C recorded in speleothems cannot be guaranteed if these effects of the above mentioned factors are not taken into consideration.

AlGaN/GaN Based Diodes for Liquid Sensing

The characteristics of AlGaN/GaN Schottky diodes as polar liquid sensors are reported. Circular structures, with a gate metal diameter of 200 μm, are designed and fabricated by using a optical lithography process. Ni/Au and Ti/Al/Ni/Au metals are used as the Schottky contact and the ohmic contact, respectively. The Schottky diodes exhibit large changes in reverse leakage current at a bias of −20 V in response to the surface exposed to various polar liquids, such as acetone and ethanol. The effective Schottky barrier height of the diodes is also changed with the polar liquids. The polar nature of the liquids leads to a change of surface charges, producing a change in surface potential at the semiconductor/liquid interface. The effect of the SiNx passivation layer thickness on the liquid sensing is also discussed. The results demonstrate that the AlGaN/GaN heterostructures are promising for polar liquids, combustion gas, biological, and strain sensing applications.

Multi-bias capacitance voltage characteristic of AlGaN/GaN HEMT

The method of multi-bias capacitance voltage measurement is presented. The physical meaning of gate—source and gate—drain capacitances in AlGaN/GaN HEMT and the variations in them with different bias conditions are discussed. A capacitance model is proposed to reflect the behaviors of the gate—source and gate—drain capacitances, which shows a good agreement with the measured capacitances, and the power performance obtains good results compared with the measured data from the capacitance model.

High performance 1 mm AlGaN/GaN HEMT based on SiC substrate

This is our first report on the high performance 1 mm AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) which was developed using home-made AlGaN/GaN epitaxy structures based on SiC substrate. Metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) was used to generate the epitaxy layers. Corresponding experiments show that the device has a gate length of 0.8 μm exhibiting drain current density of 1.16 A/mm, transconductance of 241 ms/mm, a gate-drain breakdown voltage larger than 80 V, maximum current gain frequency of 20 GHz and maximum power gain frequency of 28 GHz. In addition, the power gain under the continues wave condition is 14.2 dB with a power density of 4.1 W/mm, while under the pulsed wave condition, power gain reaches 14.4 dB with power density at 5.2 W/mm. Furthermore, the two-port network impedance characteristics display great potential in microwave application.

A Ku band internally matched high power GaN HEMT amplifier with over 30% of PAE

We report a high power Ku band internally matched power amplifier (IMPA) with high power added efficiency (PAE) using 0.3 μm AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) on 6H-SiC substrate. The internal matching circuit is designed to achieve high power output for the developed devices with a gate width of 4 mm. To improve the bandwidth of the amplifier, a T type pre-matching network is used at the input and output circuits, respectively. After optimization by a three-dimensional electromagnetic (3D-EM) simulator, the amplifier demonstrates a maximum output power of 42.5 dBm (17.8 W), PAE of 30% to 36.4% and linear gain of 7 to 9.3 dB over 13.8–14.3 GHz under a 10% duty cycle pulse condition when operated at Vds = 30 V and Vgs = −4 V. At such a power level and PAE, the amplifier exhibits a power density of 4.45 W/mm.

Properties of AlyGa1–yN/AlxGa1–xN/AlN/GaN Double-Barrier High Electron Mobility Transistor Structure

Electrical properties of AlyGa1-yN/AlxGa1-xN/AlN/GaN structure are investigated by solving coupled Schrodinger and Poisson equation self-consistently. Our calculations show that the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) density will decrease with the thickness of the second barrier (AlyGa1-yN) once the AlN content of the second barrier is smaller than a critical value y(c), and will increase with the thickness of the second barrier (AlyGa1-yN) when the critical AlN content of the second barrier y(c) is exceeded. Our calculations also show that the critical AlN content of the second barrier y(c) will increase with the AlN content and the thickness of the first barrier layer (AlxGa1-xN).

Dispersion effect on the current voltage characteristic of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

The current voltage (IV) characteristics are greatly influenced by the dispersion effects in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors. The direct current (DC) IV and pulsed IV measurements are performed to give a deep investigation into the dispersion effects, which are mainly related to the trap and self-heating mechanisms. The results show that traps play an important role in the kink effects, and high stress can introduce more traps and defects in the device. With the help of the pulsed IV measurements, the trapping effects and self-heating effects can be separated. The impact of time constants on the dispersion effects is also discussed. In order to achieve an accurate static DC IV measurement, the steady state of the bias points must be considered carefully to avoid the dispersion effects.

A high power C-band AlGaN/GaN HEMT MMIC VCO

A high power C-band monolithic voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) based on AlGaN/GaN HEMT is presented. The oscillator design utilizes a common-gate negative resistance structure, and a HEMT device acted as a varactor is used to control the VCOs oscillation frequency. The VCO operating at 20V drain bias and -3V gate bias exhibits an output power of 26 dBm at the center frequency of 5.96 GHz with dc-to-RF efficiency of 30%. Phase noise is estimated to be -96 dBc/Hz at 500 KHz offset. With the varactors voltage from -1.5 V to -16 V, the frequency tuning range is from 5.61 GHz to 6.38 GHz. The measured results show high output power, good power flatness and good tuning linearity over the tuning band. This work demonstrates the potential for AlGaN/GaN HEMT technology to be used in high power microwave oscillator applications in very compact transceiver systems.