| AVS 66th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Electronic Materials and Photonics Division | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session EM+OX+TF-TuA |
| Session: | Nikolaus Dietz Memorial Session: Wide and Ultra-wide Band Gap Materials and Devices |
| Presenter: | Erica Douglas, Sandia National Laboratories |
| Authors: | E.A. Douglas, Sandia National Laboratories A.G. Baca, Sandia National Laboratories B.A. Klein, Sandia National Laboratories A.A. Allerman, Sandia National Laboratories A.M. Armstrong, Sandia National Laboratories A. Colon, Sandia National Laboratories C.A. Stephenson, Sandia National Laboratories R.J. Kaplar, Sandia National Laboratories |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Though now commercially available, wide band gap semiconductors (WBG) such as GaN were pursued due to immense potential for high frequency, light-emission, and power electronic applications. Due to high breakdown voltages, which have been achieved due in part to intrinsic material properties and device engineering, as well as low on-state resistance, wide bandgap semiconductors have found significant success in the commercial application regime. The critical electric field that a material can withstand can be significantly increased through bandgap engineering due to critical field scaling as Eg2.5 [1]. Thus, moving from WBG materials with bandgaps ~3 eV, to UWBG with bandgaps above 3.4 eV, alloying GaN with Al can increase the bandgap from 3.4 eV (GaN) to 6.2 eV (AlN) and result in a critical electric field approaching 5X that of GaN.
Since the first AlGaN-channel transistor was reported in 2008 [2], development and progress on devices with increasing Al content has been pursued, including high electron mobility transistors with channel concentrations as high as 85% Al [3]. Though a corollary can be drawn to GaN, there are still a significant number of challenges to overcome for AlGaN-channel devices, ranging from epitaxial growth to fabrication. This talk will describe the latest results at Sandia National Laboratories in AlGaN-channel HEMTs, including recent advances in: enhancement-mode operation, current density, device performance over temperature, and RF operation.
This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525.
[1] R. J. Kaplar, et al., ECS J. Solid State Science and Technology, vol. 6, p. Q3061 (2017).
[2] T. Nanjo, et al., Appl. Phys. Lett.92, 263502 (2008).
[3] A.G. Baca, et al.,Appl. Phys. Lett.109, 033509 (2016).