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The Role of Hydrogen in Current-Induced Degradation of GaAs/AlGaAs Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2011

F. Ren
Affiliation:
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
C. R. Abernathy
Affiliation:
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974
S. N. G. Chu
Affiliation:
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974
J. R. Lothian
Affiliation:
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
S. J. Pearton
Affiliation:
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974
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Abstract

Carbon-doped base GaAs/AlGaAs HBTs display current-induced decreases in dc gain which are correlated with the amount of hydrogen incorporated in the base layer during growth by Metalorganic Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MOMBE). During device operation, minority carrier injection induced debonding of hydrogen from neutral C-H complexes leads to an increase in effective base doping level and therefore to a decrease in gain. Post-growth in-situ or ex-situ annealing eliminates this effect by breaking up the C-H complexes. Properly designed HBTs are stable even for very high collector current densities (105 A · cm−2)

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1994

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References

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