Directly extracting both threshold voltage and series resistance from the conductance-voltage curve of an AlGaN/GaN Schottky diode

An Ni/Au Schottky contact on an AlGaN/GaN heterostructure has been prepared. By using the peak-conductance model, the threshold voltage and the series resistance of the AlGaN/GaN diode are simultaneously extracted from the conductance-voltage （G-V） curve and found to be in good agreement with the ones obtained by using the capacitance-voltage （C-V） curve integration and the plot of dV/d（ln I） versus current I. Thus, a method of directly and simultaneously extracting both the threshold voltage and the series resistance from the conductance-voltage curve for the AlGaN/GaN Schottky diode is developed.

Effect of annealing on the electrical performance of N-polarity GaN Schottky barrier diodes

A nitrogen-polarity(N-polarity)GaN-based high electron mobility transistor(HEMT)shows great potential for high-fre-quency solid-state power amplifier applications because its two-dimensional electron gas(2DEG)density and mobility are mini-mally affected by device scaling.However,the Schottky barrier height(SBH)of N-polarity GaN is low.This leads to a large gate leakage in N-polarity GaN-based HEMTs.In this work,we investigate the effect of annealing on the electrical characteristics of N-polarity GaN-based Schottky barrier diodes(SBDs)with Ni/Au electrodes.Our results show that the annealing time and tem-perature have a large influence on the electrical properties of N-polarity GaN SBDs.Compared to the N-polarity SBD without annealing,the SBH and rectification ratio at±5 V of the SBD are increased from 0.51 eV and 30 to 0.77 eV and 7700,respec-tively,and the ideal factor of the SBD is decreased from 1.66 to 1.54 after an optimized annealing process.Our analysis results suggest that the improvement of the electrical properties of SBDs after annealing is mainly due to the reduction of the inter-face state density between Schottky contact metals and N-polarity GaN and the increase of barrier height for the electron emis-sion from the trap state at low reverse bias.

Influence of dry-etching damage on the electrical properties of an AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diode with recessed anode

The influences of dry-etching damage on the electrical properties of an AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diode with ICPrecessed anode was investigated for the first time. It was found that the turn-on voltage is decreased with the increase of dry-etching power. Furthermore, the leakage currents in the reverse bias region above pinch-off voltage rise as radio frequency（RF） power increases, while below pinch-off voltage, leakage currents tend to be independent of RF power.Based on detailed current–voltage–temperature（I–V –T） measurements, the barrier height of thermionic-field emission（TFE） from GaN is lowered as RF power increases, which results in early conduction. The increase of leakage current can be explained by Frenkel–Poole（FP） emission that higher dry-etching damage in the sidewall leads to the higher tunneling current, while below pinch-off voltage, the leakage is only related to the AlGaN surface, which is independent of RF power.

The Cu Based AlGaN/GaN Schottky Barrier Diode

The electrical characteristics of Cu and Ni/Al AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes on Si su bstrates are compared. The onset voltage of Cu Schottky diodes is about 0.4 V less than the Ni/Al contact. For the Cu/Ni Schottky contact, the leakage current is 4.7 × 10^-7 A/mm at -10 V. After annealing, the leakage current is decreased to 3.7 × 10^-7 A/mm for 400℃ or 4.6 × 10^-8 A/mm for 500℃, respectively. The electrical property is affected by the thickness ratio of Cu to Ni. The Cu/Ni for 80/20 nm shows a low onset voltage, while the Cu/Ni for 20/80 nm shows a low leakage current. Both breakdown voltages are above 720 V.

Breakdown characteristics of AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes fabricated on a silicon substrate

In this work, the breakdown characteristics of AlGaN/GaN planar Schottky barrier diodes （SBDs） fabricated on the silicon substrate are investigated. The breakdown voltage （BV） of the SBDs first increases as a function of the anodeto-cathode distance and then tends to saturate at larger inter-electrode spacing. The saturation behavior of the BV is likely caused by the vertical breakdown through the intrinsic GaN buffer layer on silicon, which is supported by the post-breakdown primary leakage path analysis with the emission microscopy. Surface passivation and field plate termination are found effective to suppress the leakage current and enhance the BV of the SBDs. A high BV of 601 V is obtained with a low on-resistance of 3.15 mΩ·cm^2.

Determination of the series resistance under the Schottky contacts of AlGaN/AlN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes

Rectangular AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors （HFETs） were fabricated, and the gate and the source of the HFETs consisted of AlGaN/AlN/CaN Schottky barrier diodes （SBDs）. Based on the measured forward current-voltage and the capacitance-voltage characteristics of the AlGaN/AlN/GaN SBDs, the series resistance under the Schottky contacts （Rs） was calculated using the method of power consumption, which has been proved to be valid. Finally, the method of power consumption for calculating RS was successfully used to study the two-dimensional electron gas electron mobility for a series of circular AlGaN/AlN/GaN SBDs. It is shown that the series resistance under the Schottky contacts cannot be neglected and is important for analysing and characterizing the AIGaN/AIN/GaN SBDs and the AlGaN/AlN/GaN HFETs.

Optimization of recess-free AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diode by TiN anode and current transport mechanism analysis

:In this work,the optimization of reverse leakage current(IR)and turn-on voltage(VT)in recess-free AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes(SBDs)was achieved by substituting the Ni/Au anode with TiN anode.To explain this phenomenon,the current transport mechanism was investigated by temperature-dependent current–voltage(I–V)characteristics.For forward bias,the current is dominated by the thermionic emission(TE)mechanisms for both devices.Besides,the presence of inhomogeneity of the Schottky barrier height(qφb)is proved by the linear relationship between qφb and ideality factor.For reverse bias,the current is dominated by two different mechanisms at high temperature and low temperature,respectively.At high temperatures,the Poole–Frenkel emission(PFE)induced by nitrogen-vacancy(VN)is responsible for the high IR in Ni/Au anode.For TiN anode,the IR is dominated by the PFE from threading dislocation(TD),which can be attributed to the decrease of VN due to the suppression of N diffusion at the interface of Schottky contact.At low temperatures,the IR of both diodes is dominated by Fowler–Nordheim(FN)tunneling.However,the VN donor enhances the electric field in the barrier layer,thus causing a higher IR in Ni/Au anode than TiN anode,as confirmed by the modified FN model.

Fabrication and characterization of vertical GaN Schottky barrier diodes with boron-implanted termination

The vertical GaN-on-GaN Schottky barrier diode with boron-implanted termination was fabricated and characterized.Compared with the Schottky barrier diode(SBD)without boron-implanted termination,this SBD effectively improved the breakdown voltage from 189 V to 585 V and significantly reduced the reverse leakage current by 10^5 times.In addition,a high Ion/Ioff ratio of ~10^8 was achieved by the boron-implanted technology.We used Technology Computer Aided Design(TCAD)to analyze reasons for the improved performance of the SBD with boron-implanted termination.The improved performance of diodes may be attributed to that B+could confine free carriers to suppress electron field crowding at the edge of the diode,which could improve the breakdown voltage and suppress the reverse leakage current.

Efficiency enhancement of an InGaN light-emitting diode with a p-AlGaN/GaN superlattice last quantum barrier

In this study, the efficiency droop of an InGaN light-emitting diode （LED） is reduced slgnlncanUy oy using a p-AlGaN/GaN superlattice last quantum barrier. The reduction in efficiency droop is mainly caused by the decrease of electron current leakage and the increase of hole injection efficiency, which is revealed by investigating the light currents, internal quantum efficiencies, energy band diagrams, carrier concentrations, carrier current densities, and radiative recombination efficiencies of three LED structures with the advanced physical model of semiconductor device （APSYS）.

Monolithic integration of an AlGaN/GaN metal-insulator field-effect transistor with an ultra-low voltage-drop diode for self-protection

In this paper, we present a monolithic integration of a self-protected AlGaN/GaN metal-insulator field-effect transistor （MISFET）. An integrated field-controlled diode on the drain side of the AlGaN/GaN MISFET features a self- protected function for a reverse bias. This diode takes advantage of the recessed-barrier enhancement-mode technique to realize an ultra-low voltage drop and a low turn-ON voltage. In the smart monolithic integration, this integrated diode can block a reverse bias （〉 70 V/μm） and suppress the leakage current （〈 5 × 10-11 A/mm）. Compared with conventional monolithic integration, the numerical results show that the MISET integrated with a field-controlled diode leads to a good performance for smart power integration. And the power loss is lower than 50% in conduction without forward current degeneration.

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.

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 200μm,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 SiN_(x) 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.

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.

Design optimization of high breakdown voltage vertical GaN junction barrier Schottky diode with high-K/low-K compound dielectric structure

A vertical junction barrier Schottky diode with a high-K/low-K compound dielectric structure is proposed and optimized to achieve a high breakdown voltage(BV).There is a discontinuity of the electric field at the interface of high-K and low-K layers due to the different dielectric constants of high-K and low-K dielectric layers.A new electric field peak is introduced in the n-type drift region of junction barrier Schottky diode(JBS),so the distribution of electric field in JBS becomes more uniform.At the same time,the effect of electric-power line concentration at the p-n junction interface is suppressed due to the effects of the high-K dielectric layer and an enhancement of breakdown voltage can be achieved.Numerical simulations demonstrate that GaN JBS with a specific on-resistance(R_(on,sp)) of 2.07 mΩ·cm^(2) and a BV of 4171 V which is 167% higher than the breakdown voltage of the common structure,resulting in a high figure-of-merit(FOM) of 8.6 GW/cm^(2),and a low turn-on voltage of 0.6 V.

A dual-blue light-emitting diode based on strain-compensated InGaN-AlGaN/GaN quantum wells

A strain-compensated InGaN quantum well（QW） active region employing a tensile AlGaN barrier is analyzed.Its spectral stability and efficiency droop for a dual-blue light-emitting diode（LED） are improved compared with those of the conventional InGaN/GaN QW dual-blue LEDs based on a stacking structure of two In0.18Ga0.82N/GaN QWs and two In0.12Ga0.88N/GaN QWs on the same sapphire substrate.It is found that the optimal performance is achieved when the Al composition of the strain-compensated AlGaN layer is 0.12 in blue QW and 0.21 in blue-violet QW.The improvement performance can be attributed to the strain-compensated InGaN-AlGaN/GaN QW,which can provide a better carrier confinement and effectively reduce leakage current.

Schottky forward current transport mechanisms in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs over a wide temperature range

The behavior of Schottky contacts in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors （HEMTs） is investigated by temperature-dependent current-voltage （T-I-V） measurements from 300 K to 473 K. The ideality factor and barrier height determined based on the thermionic emission （TE） theory are found to be strong functions of temperature, while present a great deviation from the theoretical value, which can be expounded by the barrier height inhomogeneities. In order to determine the forward current transport mechanisms, the experimental data are analyzed using numerical fitting method, considering the temperature-dependent series resistance. It is observed that the current flow at room temperature can be attributed to the tunneling mechanism, while thermionic emission current gains a growing proportion with an increase in temperature. Finally, the effective barrier height is derived based on the extracted thermionic emission component, and an evaluation of the density of dislocations is made from the I-V characteristics, giving a value of 1.49 × 10^7 cm^-2.

Influence of Schottky drain contacts on the strained AlGaN barrier layer of AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors

Rectangular Schottky drain AlGaN/AlN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistors （HFETs） with different gate contact areas and conventional AlGaN/AlN/GaN HFETs as control were both fabricated with same size. It was found there is a significant difference between Schottky drain AlGaN/AlN/GaN HFETs and the control group both in drain series resistance and in two-dimensional electron gas （2DEG） electron mobility in the gate–drain channel. We attribute this to the different influence of Ohmic drain contacts and Schottky drain contacts on the strained AlGaN barrier layer. For conventional AlGaN/AlN/GaN HFETs, annealing drain Ohmic contacts gives rise to a strain variation in the AlGaN barrier layer between the gate contacts and the drain contacts, and results in strong polarization Coulomb field scattering in this region. In Schottky drain AlGaN/AlN/GaN HFETs, the strain in the AlGaN barrier layer is distributed more regularly.

Thermal stability of tungsten and tungsten nitride Schottky contacts to AlGaN/GaN

Thin tungsten nitride （WNx） films were produced by reactive DC magnetron sputtering of tungsten in an Ar-N2 gas mixture. The films were used as Schottky contacts on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. The Schottky behaviours of WNx contact was investigated under various annealing conditions by current-voltage （I-V） measurements. The results show that the gate leakage current was reduced to 10-6 A/cm2 when the N2 flow is 400 mL/min. The results also show that the WNx contact improved the thermal stability of Schottky contacts, Finally, the current transport mechanism in WNx/AlGaN/GaN Schottky diodes has been investigated by means of I-V characterisation technique at various temperatures between 300 K and 523 K. ATE model with a Gaussian distribution of Schottky barrier heights （SBHs） is thought to be responsible for the electrical behaviour at temperatures lower than 523 K.

Reverse blocking enhancement of drain field plate in Schottky-drain AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistors

In this paper, we present the combination of drain field plate （FP） and Schottky drain to improve the reverse blocking capability, and investigate the reverse blocking enhancement of drain FP in Schottky-drain AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistors （HEMTs）. Drain FP and gate FP were employed in a two-dimensional simulation to improve the reverse blocking voltage （VRB） and the forward blocking voltage （VFB）. The drain-FP length, the gate-FP length and the passivation layer thickness were optimized. VRB and VFB were improved from -67 V and 134 V to -653 V and 868 V respectively after optimization. Simulation results suggest that the combination of drain FP and Schottky drain can enhance the reverse blocking capability significantly.

Vertical GaN Shottky barrier diode with thermally stable TiN anode

Vertical GaN Schottky barrier diodes with Ti N anodes were fabricated to investigate the electrical performance. The turn-on voltage and specific on-resistance of diodes are deduced to be approximately 0.41 V and 0.98 mΩ·cm2, respectively.The current-voltage curves show rectifying characteristics under different temperatures from 25℃ to 200℃, implying a good thermal stability of Ti N/Ga N contact. The low-frequency noise follows a 1/f behavior due to the multiple traps and/or barrier inhomogeneous at Ti N/Ga N interface. The trapping/de-trapping between traps and Fermi level causes the slight capacitance dispersion under reverse voltage.