Effects of N2O surface treatment on the electrical properties of the InAlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Abstract

Various surface treatment methods have been previously applied on the GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT). In this study, the effects of N2O surface treatment on the electrical properties of InAlN/GaN HEMT were studied. With this surface treatment, the ideality factor of the gate Schottky barrier diode decreases from 7.70 to 1.30, and the barrier height of SBD increases from 0.508 eV to 1.053 eV (~two folds), an indication of the improved Schottky contact characteristic. Negative-shifted threshold voltage, decreased gate capacitance and two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) electron density were observed. Both the intrinsic transconductance and 2DEG electron mobility are improved. The 2DEG electron mobilities limited by various scattering mechanisms are extracted using two-dimensional (2D) scattering theory. It is found that N2O surface treatment results in the increase of the 2DEG electron mobility due to the weakened polar optical phonon, interface roughness, and polarization Coulomb field scatterings. This study offers a feasible way to further enhance InAlN/GaN HEMT performances by using N2O surface treatment.