Demonstration of thin-film GaN Schottky diodes fabricated with epitaxial lift-off

Abstract

GaN-based devices are of increasing importance for a wide range of system applications, such as power conversion and control, displays, and sensing in harsh environments. While dramatic progress in material quality and device performance has been achieved, several key impediments to the widespread adoption of GaN remain, including the high cost of native GaN substrates (needed to achieve low dislocation densities) and limited thermal conductance for through-substrate heat removal. Use of epitaxial lift-off to form devices on thin GaN-based films is one approach to circumvent these limitations, by enabling substrate re-use and close coupling of heatsinks to the active devices, while retaining the advantages of conventional epitaxial techniques. We report the first demonstration of single-crystal thin-film GaN Schottky diodes fabricated using large-area epitaxial lift-off as a step towards economical deployment of GaN-based electronics.