An Investigation of Carbon-Doping-Induced Current Collapse in GaN-on-Si High Electron Mobility Transistors

This paper reports the successful fabrication of a GaN-on-Si high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) with a 1702 V breakdown voltage (BV) and low current collapse. The strain and threading dislocation density were well-controlled by 100 pairs of AlN/GaN superlattice buffer layers. Relative to the carbon-doped GaN spacer layer, we grew the AlGaN back barrier layer at a high temperature, resulting in a low carbon-doping concentration. The high-bandgap AlGaN provided an effective barrier for blocking leakage from the channel to substrate, leading to a BV comparable to the ordinary carbon-doped GaN HEMTs. In addition, the AlGaN back barrier showed a low dispersion of transiently pulsed ID under substrate bias, implying that the buffer traps were effectively suppressed. Therefore, we obtained a low-dynamic on-resistance with this AlGaN back barrier. These two approaches of high BV with low current collapse improved the device performance, yielding a device that is reliable in power device applications.