IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Plasma Science Thursday Sessions
       Session PS+MS-ThM

Paper PS+MS-ThM9
Effects of H@sub 2@, D@sub 2@, N@sub 2@ and Ar Plasma on III-V Compound Semiconductor Devices

Thursday, November 1, 2001, 11:00 am, Room 104

Session: Conductor Etch and Damage
Presenter: B. Luo, University of Florida
Authors: B. Luo, University of Florida
K. Ip, Agere Systems
F. Ren, University of Florida
K.P. Lee, University of Florida
S.J. Pearton, University of Florida
C.R. Abernathy, University of Florida
R.J. Shul, Sandia National Laboratories
S.N.G. Chu, Agere Systems
C.W. Tu, University of California, San Diego
C.S. Wu, Win Semiconductor
K.D. Mackenzie, Unaxis USA Inc.
C.H. Hsu, Feng Chia University, Taiwan
Correspondent: Click to Email
The effects of H@sub 2@, D@sub 2@, N@sub 2@ and Ar plasma exposures on the dc and rf characteristics of pseudomorphic AlGaAs/InGaAs high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), GaAs metal semiconductor field effect transistors (MESFETs), and AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) were investigated. The experiments were conducted in a Plasma Therm 790 inductively coupled plasma (ICP) system. The influences of rf chuck power(10-100W), ICP source power(100-800W), chamber pressure(2-10mtorr) and durations(10-240sec) on device performance were studied. To analyze the rf results, a device equivalent circuit model was proposed to realize damage effects on the transistor small-signal elements. Several plasma damage mechanisms were identified for the degradations of device dc and rf characteristics, including creation of surface and bulk deep level recombination centers, preferential loss of As atom from the surface due to energetic ion bombardment and passivation of Si donors by formation of Si-H and Si-D neutral complexes. Auger and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were also used to characterize the atomic ratio and roughness of plasma damaged surface, respectively.