Radiation hardness of gallium nitride

Ionascut-Nedelcescu, A.; Carlone, C.; Houdayer, A.; Bardeleben, H. J. von; Cantin, J. L.; Raymond, S.

doi:10.1109/tns.2002.805363

Cited by 301 publications

(174 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

168

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Wide-bandgap III-Nitrides have become one of the most important semiconductor materials systems, with applications in visible-UV light emitting devices (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs), highpower/high frequency transistors and power rectifiers. [1][2][3][4] The strong bonding in binary and ternary nitrides gives them an intrinsically high radiation resistance. The fluence of ionizing radiation at which GaN materials and devices such as transistors and light-emitting diodes start to show degradation is about two orders of magnitude higher than in their GaAs equivalents.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Pearton

Ren

Patrick

et al. 2015

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

282

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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 ...

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This parameter has been measured in several semiconductors and empirically determined to be inversely proportional to the volume of the unit cell. 4,6,9,33,[63][64][65][66][67] …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Pearton

Ren

Patrick

et al. 2015

ECS J. Solid State Sci. Technol.

282

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The theoretical considerations in Ref. [15] suggest that it is highly unlikely that Mg is affected by the electron irradiation, which leads to the conclusion that the shallow donor, which needs to be identified, must be sensitive to electron exposure. Based on the presented annealing and electron irradiation results, O and Si can be ruled out as the donor in the 3.27 eV DAP emission.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the presented annealing and electron irradiation results, O and Si can be ruled out as the donor in the 3.27 eV DAP emission. Si Ga and O N are believed to have a E threshold for the displacement of the Si (or O) atom of the same order of magnitude as that for Ga and therefore should not be affected by the electron beam [15]. Recently, H [12] and V N -H [13] were proposed to be the shallow donor level in MOVPE-grown Mg-doped GaN.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation and dissociation of hydrogen-related defect centers in Mg-doped GaN

et al. 2003

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Moderately and heavily Mg-doped GaN were studied by a combination of post-growth annealing processes and electron beam irradiation techniques during cathodoluminescence (CL) to elucidate the chemical origin of the recombination centers responsible for the main optical emission lines. The shallow donor at 20-30 meV below the conduction band, which is involved in the donor-acceptor-pair (DAP) emission at 3.27 eV, was attributed to a hydrogen-related center, presumably a (V N -H) complex. Due to the small dissociation energy (<2 eV) of the (V N -H) complex, this emission line was strongly reduced by low-energy electron irradiation. CL investigations of the DAP at a similar energetic position in Si-doped (n-type) GaN indicated that this emission line is of different chemical origin than the 3.27 eV DAP in Mg-doped GaN. A slightly deeper DAP emission centered at 3.14 eV was observed following low-energy electron irradiation, indicating the appearance of an additional donor level with a binding energy of 100-200 meV, which was tentatively attributed to a V N -related center. The blue band (2.8-3.0 eV) in heavily Mg-doped GaN was found to consist of at least two different deep donor levels at 350±30 meV and 440±40 meV. The donor level at 350±30 meV was strongly affected by electron irradiation and attributed to a H-related defect.

show abstract

“…Recent research demonstrated a radiation hardness level two orders of magnitude higher than GaAs devices (Ionascut-Nedelcescu, 2002); however, the radiation source in this case was based on fast electrons (300-1400 keV ). For our applications in HEDP and space exploration, proton and neutron tests are more relevant.…”

mentioning

confidence: 92%

Nevada Test Site-Directed Research and Development, FY 2008 Annual Report

Bender¹

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Radiation hardness of gallium nitride

Cited by 301 publications

References 10 publications

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Review—Ionizing Radiation Damage Effects on GaN Devices

Formation and dissociation of hydrogen-related defect centers in Mg-doped GaN

Nevada Test Site-Directed Research and Development, FY 2008 Annual Report

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About