Effect of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of SiN x on n-GaN Schottky rectifiers

Abstract

The electrical properties of lateral geometry GaN Schottky rectifiers were measured before and after deposition of SiN x passivation layers by conventional capacitively coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The rectifiers showed changes in reverse breakdown voltages and higher forward leakage currents for all plasma deposition conditions. The change in rectifier performance was found to depend on plasma exposure time, incident ion energy, atomic hydrogen neutral flux and film stress.