Proton irradiation-induced dynamic characteristics on high performance GaN/AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes

Dynamic characteristics of the single-crystal GaN-passivated lateral AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) treated with proton irradiation are investigated. Radiation-induced changes including idealized Schottky interface and slightly degraded on-resistance (R_ON) are observed under 10-MeV proton irradiation at a fluence of 10¹⁴ cm⁻². Because of the existing negative polarization charges induced at GaN/AlGaN interface, the dynamic ON-resistance (R_ON,dyn) shows negligible degradation after a 1000-s-long forward current stress of 50 mA to devices with and without being irradiated by protons. Furthermore, the normalized R_ON,dyn increases by only 14% that of the initial case after a 100-s-long bias of −600 V has been applied to the irradiated devices. The high-performance lateral AlGaN/GaN SBDs with tungsten as anode metal and in-situ single-crystal GaN as passivation layer show a great potential application in the harsh radiation environment of space.