Relationship between Low-Noise Performance and Electron Confinement in the Channel of Two-Mode Channel Field-Effect Transistors in a Low-Drain-Current Condition

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between the minimum noise figure (NF min) and electron confinement in the channel of the two-mode channel field-effect transistor (TMT) which we developed previously, by comparing the TMT and an AlGaAs/InGaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (P-HEMT) with a 10 nm InGaAs channel layer. The TMT had a superior measured NF min and stronger electron confinement in a low-drain-current (I ds) bias condition than the P-HEMT. The superior measured NF min of the TMT resulted in a smaller fitting factor (K f) in Fukui's noise equation than that of the P-HEMT. We demonstrated that the stronger electron confinement of the TMT leads to an increase in the correlation coefficient between drain noise current and gate-induced noise current and results in a smaller K f, which plays an important role in the reduction of NF min.