High-Permittivity Dielectric for High-Performance Wide Bandgap Electronic Devices

Abstract

In this presentation, we will review recent work on the integration of high permittivity dielectrics with wide and and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor devices to obtain improved high power and high frequency applications. We will first discuss the use of such structures for vertical power devices. The high permittivity dielectrics help to reduce surface fields and therefore prevent tunnel leakage from Schottky barriers [1]. Insertion of high permittivity dielectrics can also enable better field termination in high voltage vertical devices [2]. We will discuss recent results using such high permittivity dielectrics in vertical device structures based on Gallium Oxide, leading to high vertical electric fields up to 5.7 MV/cm being sustained in the structure.We will discuss the application of these high permittivity dielectrics for three-terminal high frequency [3] and high voltage [4,5] wide bandgap transistor applications. In lateral transistors built from wide and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors, gate breakdown and non-uniform electric fields lead to average device breakdown fields that are significantly lower than material limits. We will show how high permittivity dielectrics inserted between the gate and drain can prevent gate breakdown, and also create much more uniform electric field profiles. An analytical model to explain this will be presented and compared with 2-dimensional device simulations.Finally, we will show experimental results for lateral devices from the high Al-composition AlGaN [6], -Ga2O3[7], and AlGaN/GaN [8] material systems, where in each case, we are able to achieve state-of-art breakdown performance for devices such as lateral Schottky diodes and transistors. For example, we have achieved up to 8.3 MV/cm field in high Al-content AlGaN devices, >5.5 MV/cm in -Ga2O3-based transistors, and >3 MV/cm lateral electric field in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. The high breakdown fields also enable us to achieve state-of-art switching figures of merit in these devices.The authors acknowledge funding from NNSA ETI Consortium, AFOSR GAME MURI Program (Program Manager Dr. Ali Sayir), AFOSR (Program Manager Dr. Kenneth Goretta) NSF ECCS- and the DARPA DREAM program (Program Manger Dr. YK Chen), managed by ONR (Program Manager Dr. Paul Maki) for support of the work.