AlGaN/GaN metal–oxide–semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors with 4 nm thick Al2O3 gate oxide

Abstract

AlGaN/GaN metal–oxide–semiconductor heterostructure field-effect transistors (MOSHFETs) with 4 nm thick Al2O3 gate oxide were prepared and their performance was compared with that of AlGaN/GaN HFETs. The MOSHFETs yielded ∼40% increase of the saturation drain current compared with the HFETs, which is larger than expected due to the gate oxide passivation. Despite a larger gate-channel separation in the MOSHFETs, a higher extrinsic transconductance than that of the HFETs was measured. The drift mobility of the MOSHFETs, evaluated on large-gate FET structures, was significantly higher than that of the HFETs. The zero-bias mobility for MOSHFETs and HFETs was 1950 cm2 V−1 s−1 and 1630 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. These features indicate an increase of the drift velocity and/or a decrease of the parasitic series resistance in the MOSHFETs. The current collapse, evaluated from pulsed I−V measurements, was highly suppressed in the MOSHFETs with 4 nm thick Al2O3 gate oxide. This result, together with the suppressed frequency dispersion of the capacitance, indicates that the density of traps in the Al2O3/AlGaN/GaN MOSHFETs was significantly reduced.