High indium content graded channel GainAs/AlinAs pseudomorphic MODFETs

Abstract

We report on the electrical and microstructural properties of InP/GaxIn1-xAs/Al0.48In0.52As modulation doped layers having compositionally graded active channels with different channel thicknesses. The layers were grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy on Fe-doped InP substrates. The undoped GaInAs two dimensional electron gas channel layers were grown having indium compositions graded fromx = 0.53 at the substrate buffer tox= 0.65 at the heterointerface by varying the Ga cell temperature during growth. Active channel thicknesses of 20 nm and 30 nm were compared with lattice matched layers. Transmission electron microscope image analysis indicates no misfit dislocations in these structures. Hall-effect measurements at 300 K show an increase in the mobility from 8,380 cm2/Vs for the lattice matched layer to 12,500 cm2/Vs for the 30 nm pseudomorphic layer. Small gate-length, 0.25 μn, MODFETs were fabricated to determine effective velocity values from transconductance (gm) and current gain (h21) measurements. The peak dc extrinsicgm increased from 367 mS/mm for the lattice matched layer to 668 mS/mm for the 30 nm pseudomorphic layer. The effective electron carrier velocity increased from 1.57 × 107 cm/s for the lattice matched layer to 1.88 × 107 cm/s for the 30 nm pseudomorphic layer. Our results show that compositional grading is a useful technique to obtain thick pseudomorphic layers with good transport properties.