Highly reduced current collapse in AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors by combined application of oxygen plasma treatment and field plate structures

Abstract

We report on the highly reduced current collapse in AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) by combined application of pre-passivation oxygen (O2) plasma treatment and gate field plate (FP) structures schemes. Four different devices were fabricated in this work: (1) conventional HEMT as reference device, (2) field-plated HEMT, (3) O2 plasma-treated HEMT, (4) both field-plated and O2 plasma-treated HEMT. Analysis of dependence of normalized dynamic Ron (NDR) on gate pulse on-time (ton) revealed that gate-FP reduces the emission time constant (τi) of trapped electrons while O2-plasma treatment decreases the density of traps. For all measurement conditions, the device with both FP and O2 plasma treatment exhibited the least NDR compared to devices with either FP or O2 plasma treatment only, demonstrating for the first time the compatibility of both O2 plasma treatment and FP schemes in mitigating current collapse.