Electrical characterization of 60Co gamma radiation-exposed InAlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Kim, Hong Yeol; Kim, Jihyun; Liu, Lu; Lo, Chien-Fong; Ren, F.; Pearton, S. J.

doi:10.1116/1.4820129

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…70 Gamma ray damage.-AlGaN/GaN HEMTs irradiated with 60 Co gamma-ray doses up to 600 Mrad of 60 Co γ-rays showed an increase in reverse breakdown voltage (V RB ) by a factor of two, a negative shift in V T and a decrease in gm by 25%. 96,103 These results are consistent with the gamma-irradiation causing a decrease in the effective channel doping through introduction of deep electron traps. The irradiated devices were annealed at 200 • C for 25 minutes and these HEMTs showed partial recovery of device performance.…”

Section: Changes In Gan-based Hemt Performance After Irradiationsupporting

confidence: 80%

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Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Pearton

Ren

Patrick

et al. 2015

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

285

130

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Gallium Nitride based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are attractive for use in high power and high frequency applications, with higher breakdown voltages and two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) density compared to their GaAs counterparts. Specific applications for nitride HEMTs include air, land and satellite based communications and phased array radar. Highly efficient GaNbased blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) employ AlGaN and InGaN alloys with different compositions integrated into heterojunctions and quantum wells. The realization of these blue LEDs has led to white light sources, in which a blue LED is used to excite a phosphor material; light is then emitted in the yellow spectral range, which, combined with the blue light, appears as white. Alternatively, multiple LEDs of red, green and blue can be used together. Both of these technologies are used in high-efficiency white electroluminescent light sources. These light sources are efficient and long-lived and are therefore replacing incandescent and fluorescent lamps for general lighting purposes. Since lighting represents 20-30% of electrical energy consumption, and because GaN white light LEDs require ten times less energy than ordinary light bulbs, the use of efficient blue LEDs leads to significant energy savings. GaN-based devices are more radiation hard than their Si and GaAs counterparts due to the high bond strength in III-nitride materials. The response of GaN to radiation damage is a function of radiation type, dose and energy, as well as the carrier density, impurity content and dislocation density in the GaN. The latter can act as sinks for created defects and parameters such as the carrier removal rate due to trapping of carriers into radiation-induced defects depends on the crystal growth method used to grow the GaN layers. The growth method has a clear effect on radiation response beyond the carrier type and radiation source. We review data on the radiation resistance of AlGaN/GaN and InAlN/GaN HEMTs and GaN-based LEDs to different types of ionizing radiation, and discuss ion stopping mechanisms. The primary energy levels introduced by different forms of radiation, carrier removal rates and role of existing defects in GaN are discussed. The carrier removal rates are a function of initial carrier concentration and dose but not of dose rate or hydrogen concentration in the nitride material grown by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition. Proton and electron irradiation damage in HEMTs creates positive threshold voltage shifts due to a decrease in the two dimensional electron gas concentration resulting from electron trapping at defect sites, as well as a decrease in carrier mobility and degradation of drain current and transconductance. State-of-art simulators now provide accurate predictions for the observed changes in radiation-damaged HEMT performance. Neutron irradiation creates more extended damage regions and at high doses leads to Fermi level pinning while 60 Co γ-ray irradiation leads to much smaller changes in HEMT drain ...

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Section: Changes In Gan-based Hemt Performance After Irradiationsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…These defects act as scattering centers which result in degradation of both device performance and reliability. 96,103 After annealing the device at 200 o C, the defects were reduced, resulting in an increase of both diffusion length and performance.…”

Section: Changes In Gan-based Hemt Performance After Irradiationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Pearton

Ren

Patrick

et al. 2015

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

285

130

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“…This leads to a key measure of the magnitude of the radiation damage induced, namely, the carrier removal rate. 133 This is a parameter that can be used to compare the relative amount of change expected in a semiconductor exposed to different types of radiation. In the case of MOS gate devices, there is also the possibility of damage to the gate insulator, While MOS gates are the standard in Si devices, the absence of high-quality gate oxides on most of the wide bandgap and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors means that only SiC routinely uses this approach and most devices use metal gates.…”

Section: Total Dose and Single Event Upsetmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar results were obtained for alpha particles, while electrons were less damaging. [129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136] The high gate leakage and drain current collapse in conventional Schottky gate metal devices limits the stability and performance of HEMTs. To solve these problems, MOSHEMTs can be employed to reduce the gate leakage current and passivate surface traps, with Sc 2 O 3 , MgO, SiO 2 and Si 3 N 4 , as the most effective gate dielectrics.…”

Section: Total Dose and Single Event Upsetmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As noted previously, the damage in the active layers is reduced for higher proton energies because they are close to the surface and the energy loss by the protons is reduced. [129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136]153 For 10 MeV electron irradiation of n-GaN MOCVD and epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) layers, the irradiation produced compensation of n-type conductivity and the carrier removal rate increased substantially with starting donor concentration. The main compensating defect was an 0.15 eV electron trap.…”

Section: Total Dose and Single Event Upsetmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review—Radiation Damage in Wide and Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductors

Pearton

Aitkaliyeva

Xian

et al. 2021

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

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The wide bandgap semiconductors SiC and GaN are already commercialized as power devices that are used in the automotive, wireless, and industrial power markets, but their adoption into space and avionic applications is hindered by their susceptibility to permanent degradation and catastrophic failure from heavy-ion exposure. Efforts to space-qualify these wide bandgap power devices have revealed that they are susceptible to damage from the high-energy, heavy-ion space radiation environment (galactic cosmic rays) that cannot be shielded. In space-simulated conditions, GaN and SiC transistors have shown failure susceptibility at ∼50% of their nominal rated voltage. Similarly, SiC transistors are susceptible to radiation damage-induced degradation or failure under heavy-ion single-event effects testing conditions, reducing their utility in the space galactic cosmic ray environment. In SiC-based Schottky diodes, catastrophic single-event burnout (SEB) and other single-event effects (SEE) have been observed at ∼40% of the rated operating voltage, as well as an unacceptable degradation in leakage current at ∼20% of the rated operating voltage. The ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors Ga2O3, diamond and BN are also being explored for their higher power and higher operating temperature capabilities in power electronics and for solar-blind UV detectors. Ga2O3 appears to be more resistant to displacement damage than GaN and SiC, as expected from a consideration of their average bond strengths. Diamond, a highly radiation-resistant material, is considered a nearly ideal material for radiation detection, particularly in high-energy physics applications. The response of diamond to radiation exposure depends strongly on the nature of the growth (natural vs chemical vapor deposition), but overall, diamond is radiation hard up to several MGy of photons and electrons, up to 1015 (neutrons and high energetic protons) cm−2 and >1015 pions cm−2. BN is also radiation-hard to high proton and neutron doses, but h-BN undergoes a transition from sp2 to sp3 hybridization as a consequence of the neutron induced damage with formation of c-BN. Much more basic research is needed on the response of both the wide and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors to radiation, especially single event effects.

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