Interface and border trapping effects in normally-off Al2O3/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs with different post-etch surface treatments

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ab99bb

Abstract

Trapping effect in normally-off Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) high-electron-mobility transistors (MOS-HEMTs) with post-etch surface treatment was studied in this paper. Diffusion-controlled interface oxidation treatment and wet etch process were adopted to improve the interface quality of MOS-HEMTs. With capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurement, the density of interface and border traps were calculated to be 1.13 × 10¹² cm⁻² and 6.35 × 10¹² cm⁻², effectively reduced by 27% and 14% compared to controlled devices, respectively. Furthermore, the state density distribution of border traps with large activation energy was analyzed using photo-assisted C–V measurement. It is found that irradiation of monochromatic light results in negative shift of C–V curves, which indicates the electron emission process from border traps. The experimental results reveals that the major border traps have an activation energy about 3.29 eV and the change of post-etch surface treatment process has little effect on this major activation energy.

Keywords: AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs interface traps border traps photo-assisted C-V measurement

Received: 24 April 2020
Revised: 01 June 2020
Accepted manuscript online: 05 June 2020

PACS:	73.61.Ey	(III-V semiconductors)
	73.40.Qv	(Metal-insulator-semiconductor structures (including semiconductor-to-insulator))
	73.50.Gr	(Charge carriers: generation, recombination, lifetime, trapping, mean free paths)

Corresponding Authors: ^†Corresponding author. E-mail: jjzhu@mail.xidian.edu.cn

About author:

†Corresponding author. E-mail: jjzhu@mail.xidian.edu.cn

* Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61704124, 11690042, and 61634005).

Cite this article:

Si-Qi Jing(荆思淇), Xiao-Hua Ma(马晓华), Jie-Jie Zhu(祝杰杰)†, Xin-Chuang Zhang(张新创), Si-Yu Liu(刘思雨), Qing Zhu(朱青), and Yue Hao(郝跃) Interface and border trapping effects in normally-off Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs with different post-etch surface treatments 2020 Chin. Phys. B 29 107302

Fig. 1.

Schematic cross section of recess-gate Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs.

Fig. 2.

(a)-(b) Cross-sectional TEM micrographs of recess-gate Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMTs and (c)–(d) the enlarged view at Al₂O₃/GaN interface: (a) sample 1# with DCIO and wet etch post-etch surface treatment and (b) the controlled sample 2#.

Fig. 3.

Influence of post-etch surface treatment on normally-off Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs in terms of (a) transfer and transconductance characteristics and (b) breakdown characteristics.

Fig. 4.

Sequential C–V hysteresis curves of Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs (a) without and (b) with DCIO treatment and wet etch.

Fig. 5.

Voltage shift due to (a) interface traps and (b) border traps as a function of program voltage for normally-off Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs.

Fig. 6.

(a) Typical photo-assisted C–V characteristics of normally-off MOS-HEMTs before and after light illumination with different wavelength. (b) Gate voltage at C = 150 nF/cm² as a function of wavelength varying from 500 nm to 360 nm. The lower and upper dashed lines for each device show the reference voltage level under dark before and after trap filling.

Fig. 7.

State density distribution of border traps in normally-off MOS-HEMTs with and without DCIO treatment and wet etch.

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Interface and border trapping effects in normally-off Al2O3/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs with different post-etch surface treatments

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Interface and border trapping effects in normally-off Al₂O₃/AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMTs with different post-etch surface treatments