Modeling negative and positive temperature dependence of the gate leakage current in GaN high‐electron mobility transistors

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations show that, as temperature increases, the average kinetic energy of channel electrons in a GaN transistor first decreases and then increases. According to the calculations, the relative energy change reaches 40%. This change leads to a reduced barrier height due to quantum coupling among the three-dimensional motions of channel electrons. Thus, an analysis and physical model of the gate leakage current that includes drift velocity is proposed. Numerical calculations show that the negative and positive temperature dependence of gate leakage currents decreases across the barrier as the field increases. They also demonstrate that source–drain voltage can have an effect of 1 to 2 orders of magnitude on the gate leakage current. The proposed model agrees well with the experimental results.