A new generation of high-efficiency power devices is being developed using wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors, like GaN and SiC, which are emerging as attractive alternatives to silicon. The recent interest in GaN has been piqued by its excellent material characteristics, including its high critical electric field, high saturation velocity, high electron mobility, and outstanding thermal stability. Therefore, the superior performance is represented by GaN-based high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) devices. They can perform at higher currents, voltages, temperatures, and frequencies, making them suitable devices for the next generation of high-efficiency power converter applications, including electric vehicles, phone chargers, renewable energy, and data centers. Thus, this review article will provide a basic overview of the various technological and scientific elements of the current GaN HEMTs technology. First, the present advancements in the GaN market and its primary application areas are briefly summarized. After that, the GaN is compared with other devices, and the GaN HEMT device’s operational material properties with different heterostructures are discussed. Then, the normally-off GaN HEMT technology with their different types are considered, especially on the recessed gate metal insulator semiconductor high electron mobility transistor (MISHEMT) and p-GaN. Hereafter, this review also discusses the reliability concerns of the GaN HEMT which are caused by trap effects like a drain, gate lag, and current collapse with numerous types of degradation. Eventually, the breakdown voltage of the GaN HEMT with some challenges has been studied.

In this paper, we report on the effect of carboxyl- and amine terminations on a boron-doped diamond surface (BDD) in relation to pH sensitivity. Carboxyl termination was achieved by anodization oxidation in Carmody buffer solution (pH 7). The carboxyl-terminated diamond surface was exposed to nitrogen radicals to generate an amine-terminated surface. The pH sensitivity of the carboxyl- and amine-terminated surfaces was measured from pH 2 to pH 12. The pH sensitivities of the carboxyl-terminated surface at low and high pH are 45 and 3 mV/pH, respectively. The pH sensitivity after amine termination is significantly higher—the pH sensitivities at low and high pH are 65 and 24 mV/pH, respectively. We find that the negatively-charged surface properties of the carboxyl-terminated surface due to ionization of –COOH causes very low pH detection in the high pH region (pH 7–12). In the case of the amine-terminated surface, the surface properties are interchangeable in both acidic and basic solutions; therefore, we observed pH detection at both low and high pH regions. The results presented here may provide molecular-level understanding of surface properties with charged ions in pH solutions. The understanding of these surface terminations on BDD substrate may be useful to design diamond-based biosensors.

Heavy metal pollution remains a major concern for the public today, in line with the growing population and global industrialization. Heavy metal ion (HMI) is a threat to human and environmental safety, even at low concentrations, thus rapid and continuous HMI monitoring is essential. Among the sensors available for HMI detection, the field-effect transistor (FET) sensor demonstrates promising potential for fast and real-time detection. The aim of this review is to provide a condensed overview of the contribution of certain semiconductor substrates in the development of chemical and biosensor FETs for HMI detection in the past decade. A brief introduction of the FET sensor along with its construction and configuration is presented in the first part of this review. Subsequently, the FET sensor deployment issue and FET intrinsic limitation screening effect are also discussed, and the solutions to overcome these shortcomings are summarized. Later, we summarize the strategies for HMIs’ electrical detection, mechanisms, and sensing performance on nanomaterial semiconductor FET transducers, including silicon, carbon nanotubes, graphene, AlGaN/GaN, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD), black phosphorus, organic and inorganic semiconductor. Finally, concerns and suggestions regarding detection in the real samples using FET sensors are highlighted in the conclusion.