Hydrogen incorporation depths of >25 μm were obtained in bulk, single-crystal ZnO during exposure to H2 plasmas for 0.5 h at 300 °C, producing an estimated diffusivity of ∼8×10−10 cm2/V⋅s at this temperature. The activation energy for diffusion was 0.17±0.12 eV, indicating an interstitial mechanism. Subsequent annealing at 500–600 °C was sufficient to evolve all of the hydrogen out of the ZnO, at least to the sensitivity of secondary ion mass spectrometry (<5×1015 cm−3). The thermal stability of hydrogen retention is slightly greater when the hydrogen is incorporated by direct implantation relative to plasma exposure, due to trapping at residual damage in the former case.

Unpassivated AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors show significant gate lag effects due to the presence of surface states in the region between the gate and drain contact. Low-temperature (100 °C) layers of MgO or Sc2O3 deposited by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy are shown to effectively mitigate the collapse in drain current through passivation of the surface traps. These dielectrics may have advantages over the more conventional SiNX passivation in terms of long-term device stability.

We demonstrated that Sc2O3 thin films deposited by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy can be used simultaneously as a gate oxide and as a surface passivation layer on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). The maximum drain source current, IDS, reaches a value of over 0.8 A/mm and is ∼40% higher on Sc2O3/AlGaN/GaN transistors relative to conventional HEMTs fabricated on the same wafer. The metal–oxide–semiconductor HEMTs (MOS–HEMTs) threshold voltage is in good agreement with the theoretical value, indicating that Sc2O3 retains a low surface state density on the AlGaN/GaN structures and effectively eliminates the collapse in drain current seen in unpassivated devices. The MOS-HEMTs can be modulated to +6 V of gate voltage. In particular, Sc2O3 is a very promising candidate as a gate dielectric and surface passivant because it is more stable on GaN than is MgO.

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with different gate length and widths were irradiated with Co60 γ-rays to doses up to 600 Mrad. Little measurable change in dc performance of the devices was observed for doses lower than 300 Mrad. At the maximum dose employed, the forward gate current was significantly decreased, with an accompanying increase in reverse breakdown voltage. This is consistent with a decrease in effective carrier density in the channel as a result of the introduction of deep electron trapping states. The threshold voltage shifted to more negative voltages as a result of the irradiation, while the magnitude of the drain–source current was relatively unaffected. This is consistent with a strong increase of trap density in the material. The magnitude of the decrease in transconductance of the AlGaN/GaN HEMTs is roughly comparable to the decrease in dc current gain observed in InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors irradiated under similar conditions.

Gate-controlled n+p metal–oxide–semiconductor diodes were fabricated in p-GaN using MgO as a gate dielectric and Si+ implantation to create the n+ regions. This structure overcomes the low minority carrier generation rate in GaN and allowed observation of clear inversion behavior in the dark at room temperature. By contrast, diodes without the n+ regions to act as an external source of minority carriers did not show inversion even at measurement temperatures of 300 °C. The gated diodes showed the expected shape of the current–voltage characteristics, with clear regions corresponding to depletion and inversion under the gate. The MgO was deposited prior to the Si implantation and was stable during the activation annealing for the Si-implanted n+ regions.