AVS 50th International Symposium
    Semiconductors Tuesday Sessions
       Session SC-TuM

Invited Paper SC-TuM1
Antimonide-Based Compound Semiconductors: From Interfaces to High-Speed Transistors

Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 8:20 am, Room 321/322

Session: Narrow Gap Semiconductors
Presenter: B.R. Bennett, Naval Research Laboratory
Authors: B.R. Bennett, Naval Research Laboratory
R. Magno, Naval Research Laboratory
J.B. Boos, Naval Research Laboratory
R. Tsai, Northrop Grumman Space Technology
A. Gutierrez, Northrop Grumman Space Technology
Correspondent: Click to Email
Future high-speed analog and digital systems that will benefit from reduced power consumption and high data transmission rates include wireless applications, space-based, and micro-air-vehicles used for communications, imaging, and sensing. The development of Sb-based electronics for use in low-noise high-frequency amplifiers, digital and mixed-signal circuits could provide the enabling technology to address these needs. Our group has been using MBE to grow heterostructures for Sb-based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs). In this talk, I will discuss the design, growth, and performance of these devices. Growth issues include interface formation, doping, and composition control of alloys containing both As and Sb. The attractive material properties of this system have been demonstrated by our development of high-speed, low-power AlSb/InAs HEMTs with an intrinsic f@subT@ value of 250 GHz at V@subDS@ = 600 mV and an f@subT@ of 90 GHz at 100 mV. Current work is focused on making the technology viable by reducing leakage currents and developing MMIC-compatible processing. We have also fabricated RTDs with InAs contacts, Al(Ga)Sb barriers, and GaSb wells. For barriers that are 9 Å thick, peak currents exceed 10@super4@A/cm@super2@ with peak-to-valley ratios of 10:1 at biases near 100 mV. Other HEMT and RTD technologies (e.g. GaAs and InP) cannot achieve comparable performance at such low voltages. HBTs using InGaSb for the base and InAlAsSb alloys for the collector and emitter are also being explored. The InGaSb base is attractive due to its narrow bandgap and good hole transport characteristics. In addition, a wide range of heterojunction design flexibility is available because of the various InAlAsSb alloys that can be used. Good diode characteristics with an ideality factor of 1.1 have been obtained for InGaSb/InAlAsSb p-n heterojunctions grown with a 6.2 Å lattice constant.