(Invited, Digital Presentation) Exploring Interfaces and Polarity to Realize Vertical III-Nitride Superjunction Devices

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a surge of research and commercial interest in gallium nitride (GaN)-based devices for power conversion applications. This is largely motivated by the wide bandgap of GaN, which offers a unipolar limit of performance that is larger than that of silicon and silicon carbide. This performance ceiling, however, can be surpassed with the use of superjunction (SJ) structures, a strategy that has now been experimentally proven in both vertical Si- and SiC-based technologies. The ability to selectively dope lateral regions of a semiconductor is a requirement for SJ fabrication, with typical schemes relying on ion implantation, epitaxial regrowth or a combination of both. However, due to the challenges associated with applying conventional selective area doping techniques to GaN, vertical GaN SJ structures have remained elusive.Recently, our team proposed the use of lateral polar junctions (LPJs) to form vertical GaN SJ devices. This approach exploits the natural doping asymmetry between the N-polar and Ga-polar crystal orientations to simultaneously grow N-polar GaN for the n-type pillars and Ga-polar GaN for the p-type pillars. The first part of this talk will present a design framework for GaN SJ devices. This will reveal several critical design requirements: 1) doping in N-polar GaN must be reduced below 5 × 1017 cm-3 to achieve kV-class devices, 2) charge must be tightly balanced between neighboring pillars in the SJ structure to obtain efficient performance and 3) the barrier height to the N-polar GaN region must be tuned to suppress leakage currents and avoid bipolar operation.The next part of the talk will focus on the characterization of rectifying contacts to N-polar GaN. While the analysis of Schottky barrier diodes proved the ability to reduce doping to relevant levels, the low barrier height and enhanced chemical sensitivity of N-polar GaN make it challenging to process adequate devices. Thus, low-pressure chemical vapor deposited (LPCVD) silicon nitride (SiN) interlayers were introduced to increase the barrier height. This approach is enabled by surface-termination dependent barrier height and an amphoteric miniband for enhanced conduction via the interlayer. Moreover, the use of the LPCVD SiN interlayer enables operation of the diodes up to 400 °C compared to less than 200 °C for the reference case. In addition, N-polar GaN camel diodes were also designed, fabricated and tested to better tune the barrier height. The latter structure was incorporated into the first charge-balanced GaN superjunction device. A detailed electrical analysis of the GaN LPJ device will represent the final portion of this talk.The successful demonstration of these experimental building blocks paves the way for the GaN LPJ to be used in future high-voltage GaN SJ devices.