Temperature dependent DC and RF performance of diamond MESFET

Abstract

This paper reports the first studies on temperature dependent DC and RF characteristics of diamond metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors along with circular-transmission-line-method measurements on hydrogen-terminated diamond surface. In general, the device under study is thermally stable up to 100 °C as it does not deteriorate at higher temperatures with the cut-off frequency for current gain maintained at 8∼9 GHz. It is found that the sheet resistance is almost totally independent of temperature, contact resistance is negligible, and channel conductance underneath the gate decreases with increasing temperature. The threshold voltage for the device is found to shift to the negative side with increasing temperature. A small-signal equivalent circuit analysis reveals that both transconductance and gate-source capacitance decrease with increasing temperature, which results in the almost constant cut-off frequency for current gain. The experimental results can be explained by the fact that with increasing temperature, the band near the Al/H-terminated diamond surface bends upward more weakly, which leads to a decrease of buffer capacitance. At the same time the mobility decreases and the transconductance therefore decreases.