DC and microwave characteristics of metamorphic InP/In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As heterojunction bipolar transistors grown on GaAs substrates

Abstract

We report, for the first time, a metamorphic InP/In/sub 0.53/Ga/sub 0.47/As/InP double heterojunction bipolar transistors (DHBTs) on GaAs substrates grown by Solid-Source molecular beam epitaxy (SSMBE). Detailed dc and microwave characterization were done on the fabricated self-aligned metamorphic DHBTs. Devices with 5/spl times/5 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ emitter area showed a typical peak current gain of 40, a common-emitter breakdown voltage (BV/sub CEO/) higher than 9 V, a current gain cut-off frequency (f/sub T/) of 46 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (f/sub MAX/) of 40 GHz. Detailed analysis suggests that the degradation of the base-emitter heterojunction interface and the increase of bulk recombination are the most probable causes for the poorer device performance of the current metamorphic HBTs compared to the lattice-matched HBTs.