X. A. Cao

Electrical effects of plasma damage in p-GaN

The reverse breakdown voltage of p-GaN Schottky diodes was used to measure the electrical effects of high density Ar or H2 plasma exposure. The near surface of the p-GaN became more compensated through introduction of shallow donor states whose concentration depended on ion flux, ion energy, and ion mass. At high fluxes or energies, the donor concentration exceeded 1019 cm−3 and produced p-to-n surface conversion. The damage depth was established as ∼400 A based on electrical and wet etch rate measurements. Rapid thermal annealing at 900 °C under a N2 ambient restored the initial electrical properties of the p-GaN.

Depth and thermal stability of dry etch damage in GaN Schottky diodes

GaN Schottky diodes were exposed to N2 or H2 inductively coupled plasmas prior to deposition of the rectifying contact. Subsequent annealing, wet photochemical etching, or (NH4)2S surface passivation treatments were examined for their effect on diode current–voltage (I–V) characteristics. We found that either annealing at 750 °C under N2, or removal of ∼500–600 A of the surface essentially restored the initial I–V characteristics. There was no measurable improvement in the plasma-exposed diode behavior with (NH4)2S treatments.

Growth and Fabrication of GaN/AlGaN Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor

A GaN/AlGaN heterojunction bipolar transistor structure with Mg doping in the base and Si Doping in the emitter and collector regions was grown by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition in c-axis Al(2)O(3). Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry measurements showed no increase in the O concentration (2-3x10(18) cm(-3)) in the AlGaN emitter and fairly low levels of C (~4-5x10(17) cm (-3)) throughout the structure. Due to the non-ohmic behavior of the base contact at room temperature, the current gain of large area (~90 um diameter) devices was <3. Increasing the device operating temperature led to higher ionization fractions of the mg acceptors in the base, and current gains of ~10 were obtained at 300 degree C.

ULTRAHIGH SI+ IMPLANT ACTIVATION EFFICIENCY IN GAN USING A HIGH-TEMPERATURE RAPID THERMAL PROCESS SYSTEM

Si+ implant activation efficiencies above 90%, even at doses of 5×1015 cm−2, have been achieved in GaN by rapid thermal processing at 1400–1500 °C for 10 s. The annealing system utilizes molybdenum intermetallic heating elements capable of operation up to 1900 °C, producing high heating and cooling rates (up to 100 °C s−1). Unencapsulated GaN shows severe surface pitting at 1300 °C and complete loss of the film by evaporation at 1400 °C. Dissociation of nitrogen from the surface is found to occur with an approximate activation energy of 3.8 eV for GaN (compared to 4.4 eV for AlN and 3.4 eV for InN). Encapsulation with either rf magnetron reactively sputtered or metal organic molecular beam epitaxy-grown AlN thin films provides protection against GaN surface degradation up to 1400 °C, where peak electron concentrations of ∼5×1020 cm−3 can be achieved in Si-implanted GaN. Secondary ion mass spectrometry profiling showed little measurable redistribution of Si, suggesting DSi⩽10−13 cm2 s−1 at 1400 °C. The imp...

Effects of interfacial oxides on Schottky barrier contacts to n- and p-type GaN

Schottky contacts were formed on n- and p-type GaN after either a conventional surface cleaning step in solvents, HCl and HF or with an additional treatment in (NH4)2S to prevent reformation of the native oxide. Reductions in barrier height were observed with the latter treatment, but there was little change in diode ideality factor. A simple model suggests that an interfacial insulating oxide of thickness 1–2 nm was present after conventional cleaning. This oxide has a strong influence on the contact characteristics on both n- and p-type GaN and appears to be responsible for some of the wide spread in contact properties reported in the literature.

High voltage GaN Schottky rectifiers

Mesa and planar GaN Schottky diode rectifiers with reverse breakdown voltages (V/sub RB/) up to 550 and >2000 V, respectively, have been fabricated. The on-state resistance, R/sub ON/, was 6 m/spl Omega//spl middot/cm/sup 2/ and 0.8 /spl Omega/ cm/sup 2/, respectively, producing figure-of-merit values for (V/sub RB/)/sup 2//R/sub ON/ in the range 5-48 MW/spl middot/cm/sup -2/. At low biases the reverse leakage current was proportional to the size of the rectifying contact perimeter, while at high biases the current was proportional to the area of this contact. These results suggest that at low reverse biases, the leakage is dominated by the surface component, while at higher biases the bulk component dominates. On-state voltages were 3.5 V for the 550 V diodes and /spl ges/15 for the 2 kV diodes. Reverse recovery times were <0.2 /spl mu/s for devices switched from a forward current density of /spl sim/500 A/spl middot/cm/sup -2/ to a reverse bias of 100 V.

GaN electronics for high power, high temperature applications

A brief review is given of recent progress in fabrication of high voltage GaN and AlGaN rectifiers, GaN/AlGaN heterojunction bipolar transistors and GaN metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistors. Improvements in epitaxial layer quality and in fabrication techniques have led to significant advances in device performance.

Creation of high resistivity GaN by implantation of Ti, O, Fe, or Cr

Implantation of n- and p-type GaN with Ti+, O+, Fe+, or Cr+ was found to produce defect levels which pinned the Fermi level in these materials at EC−(0.20–0.49) eV (n type) or EV+0.44 eV (p type). Maximum sheet resistances of ∼1012 Ω/□ (n type) and ∼1010 Ω/□ (p type) were obtained after implantation and annealing in the range of 300–600 °C. At higher annealing temperatures, the sheet resistance decreased to near the unimplanted values (3×104 Ω/□ in p type, 7×102 Ω/□ in n type). The evolution of the sheet resistance with annealing temperature is consistent with damage-related trap sites removing carriers from the conduction or valence bands.

Al composition dependence of breakdown voltage in AlxGa1−xN Schottky rectifiers

Planar geometry, lateral Schottky rectifiers were fabricated on high resistivity AlxGa1−xN (x=0–0.25) epitaxial layers grown on sapphire substrates. The reverse breakdown voltages of unpassivated devices increased with Al composition, varying from 2.3 kV for GaN to 4.3 kV for Al0.25Ga0.75N. The reverse current–voltage (I–V) characteristics showed classical Shockley–Read–Hall recombination as the dominant mechanism, with I∝V0.5. The reverse current density in all diodes was in the range 5–10×10−6 A cm−2 at 2 kV. The use of p+ guard rings was effective in preventing premature edge breakdown and with optimum ring width increased VB from 2.3 to 3.1 kV in GaN diodes.

THERMAL STABILITY OF W AND WSIX CONTACTS ON P-GAN

The annealing temperature (400–1100 °C) and measurement temperature (25–300 °C) dependencies of current–voltage characteristics of W and WSi0.45 contacts on p-GaN have been compared to the more common Ni/Au metallization. At 25 °C, slightly rectifying characteristics were obtained for all three types of contact, but at 300 °C specific contact resistances in the 10−2 Ω cm2 range were obtained for WSi0.45 and Ni/Au. This is due to an increase in Mg acceptor ionization efficiency (from 10% at 25 °C to 57% at 300 °C) and more efficient thermionic hole emission across the metal-GaN interface. Both WSi0.45 and W contacts retained featureless surface morphology for annealing at >900 °C, whereas Ni/Au showed substantial islanding at ⩽700 °C.