The effects of tetramethylammonium hydroxide treatment on the performance of recessed-gate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Do, Jae-Won; Jung, Hyun‐Wook; Shin, Min Jeong; Ahn, Ho−Kyun; Kim, Haecheon; Kim, Ryun-Hwi; Cho, Kyu Jun; Chang, Sung‐Jae; Min, Byung Gil; Yoon, Hyung Sup; Kim, Ji-Heon; Yang, Joon Mo; Lee, Jung‐Hee; Lim, Jong−Won

doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2017.02.053

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The peak intensity ratio of Ga-O/Ga-N significantly decreased to 6.6% from 63%. The removal of native oxide at the GaN surface via wet surface treatment reduced the intensity of the Ga-O bond, subsequently improving device performance as previously reported [31][32][33][34]. Figure 3 illustrates the change in the atomic composition of the Ga 3 core levels before and after surface treatment, with both spectra deconvoluted into two peaks of Ga-N and Ga-O.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 63%

Remarkable Reduction in IG with an Explicit Investigation of the Leakage Conduction Mechanisms in a Dual Surface-Modified Al2O3/SiO2 Stack Layer AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We demonstrated the performance of an Al2O3/SiO2 stack layer AlGaN/GaN metal–oxide semiconductor (MOS) high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) combined with a dual surface treatment that used tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) with post-gate annealing (PGA) modulation at 400 °C for 10 min. A remarkable reduction in the reverse gate leakage current (IG) up to 1.5×10−12 A/mm (@ VG = −12 V) was observed in the stack layer MOS-HEMT due to the combined treatment. The performance of the dual surface-treated MOS–HEMT was significantly improved, particularly in terms of hysteresis, gate leakage, and subthreshold characteristics, with optimized gate annealing treatment. In addition, an organized gate leakage conduction mechanism in the AlGaN/GaN MOS–HEMT with the Al2O3/SiO2 stack gate dielectric layer was investigated before and after gate annealing treatment and compared with the conventional Schottky gate. The conduction mechanism in the reverse gate bias was Poole–Frankel emission for the Schottky-gate HEMT and the MOS–HEMT before annealing. The dominant conduction mechanism was ohmic/Poole-Frankel at low/medium forward bias. Meanwhile, gate leakage was governed by the hopping conduction mechanism in the MOS–HEMT without gate annealing modulation at a higher forward bias. After post-gate annealing (PGA) treatment, however, the leakage conduction mechanism was dominated by trap-assisted tunneling at the low to medium forward bias region and by Fowler–Nordheim tunneling at the higher forward bias region. Moreover, a decent product of maximum oscillation frequency and gate length (fmax × LG) was found to reach 27.16 GHz∙µm for the stack layer MOS–HEMT with PGA modulation. The dual surface-treated Al2O3/SiO2 stack layer MOS–HEMT with PGA modulation exhibited decent performance with an IDMAX of 720 mA/mm, a peak extrinsic transconductance (GMMAX) of 120 mS/mm, a threshold voltage (VTH) of −4.8 V, a higher ION/IOFF ratio of approximately 1.2×109, a subthreshold swing of 82 mV/dec, and a cutoff frequency(ft)/maximum frequency of (fmax) of 7.5/13.58 GHz.

show abstract

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 63%

Remarkable Reduction in IG with an Explicit Investigation of the Leakage Conduction Mechanisms in a Dual Surface-Modified Al2O3/SiO2 Stack Layer AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such an effect indicates that with the application of wet surface treatment, the imperfect layer can be effectively removed. In [ 17 ], the XPS analysis showed the reduction of the Ga–O and Al–O percentage after the TMAH treatment, which was considered to be the removal of the damage and the oxides at the AlGaN gate surface region.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, techniques of surface treatment, damage-free gate recess, and dielectric passivation have been proposed to suppress the possible damage that causes the current collapse phenomenon [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. There are various surface treatments and cleaning methods, such as UV/ozone [ 16 ], wet chemical [ 17 ], plasma [ 18 ], descum [ 19 ] and O 2 treatment [ 20 ] which have been adopted for the improvement of the surface states. For instance, with the SF 6 plasma treatment, the gate leakage and pulse I–V characteristics were improved effectively due to the reduction in the amount of carbon on the semiconductor surface [ 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption of the Wet Surface Treatment Technique for the Improvement of Device Performance of Enhancement-Mode AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMTs for Millimeter-Wave Applications

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this work, a low-power plasma oxidation surface treatment followed by Al2O3 gate dielectric deposition technique is adopted to improve device performance of the enhancement-mode (E-mode) AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors (MOSHEMTs) intended for applications at millimeter-wave frequencies. The fabricated device exhibited a threshold voltage (Vth) of 0.13 V and a maximum transconductance (gm) of 484 (mS/mm). At 38 GHz, an output power density of 3.22 W/mm with a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 34.83% were achieved. Such superior performance was mainly attributed to the high-quality Al2O3 layer with a smooth surface which also suppressed the current collapse phenomenon.

show abstract

“…AlGaN/GaN heterostructures have attracted a lot of attention as next‐generation power semiconductors for high‐frequency and high‐power electronic devices such as high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) . The reason for this attraction is that AlGaN/GaN heterostructures have a channel of two‐dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with high mobility and that they have high breakdown electric field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of N₂ and O₂ Plasma‐Induced Damages on AlGaN Thin Film Surfaces

Kawakami

Niibe

Nakano

et al. 2017

Physica Status Solidi (a)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A fundamental understanding of N 2 and O 2 plasma-induced damage on AlGaN surface is needed in order not to severely degrade electrical characteristics and in order to intelligently achieve the normally-off operation of AlGaN/GaN-based electronic devices. A difference between the damage characteristics of Al 0.24 Ga 0.76 N thin film surfaces irradiated with N 2 and O 2 plasmas is reported, from the perspective of impact of ultraviolet (UV) photons emitted from the plasmas. With the lengthening irradiation time, N 2 plasma irradiation introduced a large degree of nitrogen deficiency under the influence of near-UV photons with energies of 3.68 and 3.93 eV larger than the AlGaN band-gap energy, compared to O 2 plasma irradiation without the emission of near-UV photons. In a short irradiation time, O 2 plasma irradiation introduced a larger degree of nitrogen deficiency. With increasing gas pressure, O 2 plasma-induced damage on the surface was more enhanced than N 2 plasma-induced damage. The degree of aluminum deficiency was more enhanced than that of gallium deficiency, the amount of oxides incorporated into the surface was suppressed, and the etch-pit density comparable to the dislocation density was introduced on the surface. These findings can be attributed to the impacts of vacuum ultraviolet photons and energetic O þ ions from the O 2 plasma.

show abstract

The effects of tetramethylammonium hydroxide treatment on the performance of recessed-gate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Cited by 9 publications

References 20 publications

Remarkable Reduction in IG with an Explicit Investigation of the Leakage Conduction Mechanisms in a Dual Surface-Modified Al2O3/SiO2 Stack Layer AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT

Remarkable Reduction in IG with an Explicit Investigation of the Leakage Conduction Mechanisms in a Dual Surface-Modified Al2O3/SiO2 Stack Layer AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT

Adoption of the Wet Surface Treatment Technique for the Improvement of Device Performance of Enhancement-Mode AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMTs for Millimeter-Wave Applications

Characteristics of N₂ and O₂ Plasma‐Induced Damages on AlGaN Thin Film Surfaces

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

The effects of tetramethylammonium hydroxide treatment on the performance of recessed-gate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Cited by 9 publications

References 20 publications

Remarkable Reduction in IG with an Explicit Investigation of the Leakage Conduction Mechanisms in a Dual Surface-Modified Al2O3/SiO2 Stack Layer AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT

Remarkable Reduction in IG with an Explicit Investigation of the Leakage Conduction Mechanisms in a Dual Surface-Modified Al2O3/SiO2 Stack Layer AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT

Adoption of the Wet Surface Treatment Technique for the Improvement of Device Performance of Enhancement-Mode AlGaN/GaN MOSHEMTs for Millimeter-Wave Applications

Characteristics of N2 and O2 Plasma‐Induced Damages on AlGaN Thin Film Surfaces

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Characteristics of N₂ and O₂ Plasma‐Induced Damages on AlGaN Thin Film Surfaces