Neutron irradiation effects on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/21/3/037104

Abstract AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) were exposed to 1 MeV neutron irradiation at a neutron fluence of 1 $\times$ 10¹⁵ cm^-2. The dc characteristics of the devices, such as the drain saturation current and the maximum transconductance, decreased after neutron irradiation. The gate leakage currents increased obviously after neutron irradiation. However, the rf characteristics, such as the cut-off frequency and the maximum frequency, were hardly affected by neutron irradiation. The AlGaN/GaN heterojunctions have been employed for the better understanding of the degradation mechanism. It is shown in the Hall measurements and capacitance-voltage tests that the mobility and concentration of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) decreased after neutron irradiation. There was no evidence of the full-width at half-maximum of X-ray diffraction (XRD) rocking curve changing after irradiation, so the dislocation was not influenced by neutron irradiation. It is concluded that the point defects induced in AlGaN and GaN by neutron irradiation are the dominant mechanisms responsible for performance degradations of AlGaN/GaN HEMT devices.

Keywords: neutron irradiation AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor heterojunction defects

Received: 14 July 2011
Revised: 31 August 2011
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	71.55.Eq	(III-V semiconductors)
	61.80.Hg	(Neutron radiation effects)
	73.40.Kp	(III-V semiconductor-to-semiconductor contacts, p-n junctions, and heterojunctions)

Fund: Project supported by the Major Program and Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 60890191 and 60736033).

Corresponding Authors: Hao Yue,yhao@xidian.edu.cn
E-mail: yhao@xidian.edu.cn

Cite this article:

LŰ Ling(吕玲), Zhang Jin-Cheng(张进成), Xue Jun-Shuai(薛军帅), Ma Xiao-Hua(马晓华), Zhang Wei(张伟), Bi Zhi-Wei(毕志伟), Zhang Yue(张月), and Hao Yue(郝跃) Neutron irradiation effects on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors 2012 Chin. Phys. B 21 037104

[1] Nedelcescu A L, Carlone C, Houdayer A, Bardeleben H J, Cantin J L and Raymond S 2002 IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 49 2733
[2] Clareys C and Simoen E 2002 Radiation Effects in Advanced Semiconductor Materials and Devices (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlag)
[3] Luo B, Johnson J W, Ren F, Allums K K, Abernathy C R, Pearton S J, Dwivedi R, Fogarty T N, Wilkins R, Dabiran A M, Wowchack A M, Polley C J, Chow P P and Baca A G 2001 Appl. Phys. Lett. 79 2196
[4] Gu W P, Hao Y, Zhang J C, Wang C, Feng Q and Ma X H 2009 Acta Phys. Sin. 58 511 (in Chinese)
[5] Petrosky J C, McClory J W, Gray T E and Uhlman T A 2009 IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 56 2905
[6] McClory J W and Petrosky J C 2007 IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 54 1969
[7] Chernyak L, Osinsky A, Temkin H, Yang J W, Chen Q and Khan M A 1996 Appl. Phys. Lett. 69 2531
[8] Sathish N, Dhamodaran S, Pathak A P, Krishna M G, Khan S A, Avasthi D K, Pandey A, Muralidharan R, Li G and Jagadish C 2007 Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B 256 281
[9] Wang R X, Xu S J, Fung S, Beling C D, Wang K, Li S, Wei Z F, Zhou T J, Zhang J D and Huang Y 2005 Appl. Phys. Lett. 87 031906
[10] Polyakov A Y, Smirnov N B, Govorkov A V, Markov A V, Pearton S J, Kolin N G, Merkurisov D I, Boiko V M, Skowronski M and Lee I H 2006 Physica B 376-377 523
[11] Zhang M L, Wang X L, Xiao H L, Yang C B and Wang R 2010 ICSIT 1-4 1533
[12] Lorenz K, Marques J G, Franco N, Alves E, Peres M, Correia M R and Monteiro T 2008 Nucl. Instrum. Meth. B 266 2780
[13] Polyakov A Y, Smirnov N B, Govorkov, Markov A V, Yakimov E B, Vergeles P S, Kolin N G, Merkurisov D I, Boiko V M, Lee I H, Lee C R and Pearton S J 2007 J. Electron. Mater. 36 1320
[14] Reshchikov M A and Morkoc H 2005 J. Appl. Phys. 97 061301

[1]	Advancing thermoelectrics by suppressing deep-level defects in Pb-doped AgCrSe₂ alloys Yadong Wang(王亚东), Fujie Zhang(张富界), Xuri Rao(饶旭日), Haoran Feng(冯皓然),Liwei Lin(林黎蔚), Ding Ren(任丁), Bo Liu(刘波), and Ran Ang(昂然). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(4): 047202.
[2]	Design and research of normally-off β-Ga₂O₃/4H-SiC heterojunction field effect transistor Meixia Cheng(程梅霞), Suzhen Luan(栾苏珍), Hailin Wang(王海林), and Renxu Jia(贾仁需). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(3): 037302.
[3]	Abnormal magnetoresistance effect in the Nb/Si superconductor-semiconductor heterojunction Zhi-Wei Hu(胡志伟) and Xiang-Gang Qiu(邱祥冈). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(3): 037401.
[4]	Achieving highly-efficient H₂S gas sensor by flower-like SnO₂-SnO/porous GaN heterojunction Zeng Liu(刘增), Ling Du(都灵), Shao-Hui Zhang(张少辉), Ang Bian(边昂), Jun-Peng Fang(方君鹏), Chen-Yang Xing(邢晨阳), Shan Li(李山), Jin-Cheng Tang(汤谨诚), Yu-Feng Guo(郭宇锋), and Wei-Hua Tang(唐为华). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(2): 020701.
[5]	Molecular dynamics study of interactions between edge dislocation and irradiation-induced defects in Fe–10Ni–20Cr alloy Tao-Wen Xiong(熊涛文), Xiao-Ping Chen(陈小平), Ye-Ping Lin(林也平), Xin-Fu He(贺新福), Wen Yang(杨文), Wang-Yu Hu(胡望宇), Fei Gao(高飞), and Hui-Qiu Deng(邓辉球). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(2): 020206.
[6]	Micro-mechanism study of the effect of Cd-free buffer layers ZnXO (X=Mg/Sn) on the performance of flexible Cu₂ZnSn(S, Se)⁴ solar cell Caixia Zhang(张彩霞), Yaling Li(李雅玲), Beibei Lin(林蓓蓓), Jianlong Tang(唐建龙), Quanzhen Sun(孙全震), Weihao Xie(谢暐昊), Hui Deng(邓辉), Qiao Zheng(郑巧), and Shuying Cheng(程树英). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(2): 028801.
[7]	Charge-mediated voltage modulation of magnetism in Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂/Co multiferroic heterojunction Jia Chen(陈佳), Peiyue Yu(于沛玥), Lei Zhao(赵磊), Yanru Li(李彦如), Meiyin Yang(杨美音), Jing Xu(许静), Jianfeng Gao(高建峰), Weibing Liu(刘卫兵), Junfeng Li(李俊峰), Wenwu Wang(王文武), Jin Kang(康劲), Weihai Bu(卜伟海), Kai Zheng(郑凯), Bingjun Yang(杨秉君), Lei Yue(岳磊), Chao Zuo(左超), Yan Cui(崔岩), and Jun Luo(罗军). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(2): 027504.
[8]	High-performance amorphous In-Ga-Zn-O thin-film transistor nonvolatile memory with a novel p-SnO/n-SnO₂ heterojunction charge trapping stack Wen Xiong(熊文), Jing-Yong Huo(霍景永), Xiao-Han Wu(吴小晗), Wen-Jun Liu(刘文军),David Wei Zhang(张卫), and Shi-Jin Ding(丁士进). Chin. Phys. B, 2023, 32(1): 018503.
[9]	Sub-stochiometric MoO_x by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering as hole-selective passivating contacts for silicon heterojunction solar cells Xiufang Yang(杨秀芳), Shengsheng Zhao(赵生盛), Qian Huang(黄茜), Cao Yu(郁超), Jiakai Zhou(周佳凯), Xiaoning Liu(柳晓宁), Xianglin Su(苏祥林),Ying Zhao(赵颖), and Guofu Hou(侯国付). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(9): 098401.
[10]	Effects of oxygen concentration and irradiation defects on the oxidation corrosion of body-centered-cubic iron surfaces: A first-principles study Zhiqiang Ye(叶志强), Yawei Lei(雷亚威), Jingdan Zhang(张静丹), Yange Zhang(张艳革), Xiangyan Li(李祥艳), Yichun Xu(许依春), Xuebang Wu(吴学邦), C. S. Liu(刘长松), Ting Hao(郝汀), and Zhiguang Wang(王志光). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(8): 086802.
[11]	Modulation of Schottky barrier in XSi₂N₄/graphene (X=Mo and W) heterojunctions by biaxial strain Qian Liang(梁前), Xiang-Yan Luo(罗祥燕), Yi-Xin Wang(王熠欣), Yong-Chao Liang(梁永超), and Quan Xie(谢泉). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(8): 087101.
[12]	Angular dependence of proton-induced single event transient in silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors Jianan Wei(魏佳男), Yang Li(李洋), Wenlong Liao(廖文龙), Fang Liu(刘方), Yonghong Li(李永宏), Jiancheng Liu(刘建成), Chaohui He(贺朝会), and Gang Guo(郭刚). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(8): 086106.
[13]	Direct visualization of structural defects in 2D semiconductors Yutuo Guo(郭玉拓), Qinqin Wang(王琴琴), Xiaomei Li(李晓梅), Zheng Wei(魏争), Lu Li(李璐), Yalin Peng(彭雅琳), Wei Yang(杨威), Rong Yang(杨蓉), Dongxia Shi(时东霞), Xuedong Bai(白雪冬), Luojun Du(杜罗军), and Guangyu Zhang(张广宇). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(7): 076105.
[14]	An electromagnetic simulation assisted small signal modeling method for InP double-heterojunction bipolar transistors Yanzhe Wang(王彦喆), Wuchang Ding(丁武昌), Yongbo Su(苏永波), Feng Yang(杨枫),Jianjun Ding(丁建君), Fugui Zhou(周福贵), and Zhi Jin(金智). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(6): 068502.
[15]	First-principles study of stability of point defects and their effects on electronic properties of GaAs/AlGaAs superlattice Shan Feng(冯山), Ming Jiang(姜明), Qi-Hang Qiu(邱启航), Xiang-Hua Peng(彭祥花), Hai-Yan Xiao(肖海燕), Zi-Jiang Liu(刘子江), Xiao-Tao Zu(祖小涛), and Liang Qiao(乔梁). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(3): 036104.

No Suggested Reading articles found!

Viewed

Full text

Abstract

Cited

Metrics
Related Articles

Neutron irradiation effects on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Cite this article:

Online attention