Heterostructure field effect transistors grown by MOVPE

Abstract

Metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) has received much attention as an important technique for the growth of III–V compound semiconductor layers for electronic and optoelectronic applications. The move of the AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure field effect transistor (HFET) technology from research to production will be discussed in this paper. In addition developments such as undoped AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure insulated gate FET (HIGFET) for digital applications will be reported. These FET offer the possibility of easy production of both n- and p-type channel devices on the same layer structure. The improvements in the performance of electronic devices such as latticematched InP-based n-channel HFET grown by MOVPE will be shown. Especially for p-type structures a reduction in the effective hole mass due to strain causes improvements in the operation of p-type pseudomorphic devices. These InP HFET grown by MOVPE are favorable candidates for the application in high-performance optoelectronic integrated circuits in the 1.1–1.65 μm region.