The key parameters of GaN for use in microwave power amplifiers are presented. The electron-scattering effect of dislocations are presented for 2 DEG in HEMT devices. The use of the piezoelectric effect in designing Aly Ga1-yN/GaN HEMT structures is reviewed for a range of y.Short-gate device fabrication methods, and the device characterization, are presented. Maximum frequency of oscillation for .15 μm gates reached 140 GHz, while .3 μm gate power amplifiers reached 74% power-added efficiency at 3 GHz.

We report on a Double Channel A1GaN/GaN Heterostructure Field Effect Transistor, where the bottom channel is formed by a GaN-AlGaN-GaN Semiconductor-Insulator-Semiconductor structure. The series resistance for the bottom channel is strongly dependent on the drain bias. This new design demonstrates that the current carrying capability of AlGaN/GaN HFETs can be enhanced using multi channel structures.

We present the results of the study of the electric breakdown in p-π-n GaN diodes. The breakdown is observed at reverse biases above 40 V and is accompanied by the formation of microplasmas. The study shows that the observed breakdown field in GaN (on the order of 1 to 2 MV/cm) increases with the temperature. This feature makes GaN very promising for high power devices and avalanche photodetectors, operating at elevated temperatures.

Low frequency noise has been investigated in hexagonal n-type GaN with equilibrium electron concentration n ∼ 1017 cm−3 at T=300 K. The frequency and temperature dependencies of the spectral density of the current noise, SI, have been studied in the frequency range f from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Over the whole temperature range from T=80K to 400K the SI(f) dependence is very close to 1/f. The value of the Hooge constant, α, is very large: α ∼ 5 – 7 and is found to be temperature independent. The effects of illumination on the low frequency noise in GaN are studied for the first time. The noise is unaffected by illumination with photon energy Eph < Eg, while band-to band illumination (Eph∼Eg ) influences the low frequency noise, increasing the noise at higher temperatures, and decreasing it at lower temperatures.

The wide bandgap semiconductors GaN and AlGaN show promise for high voltage standoff layers in high power devices such as GaN Schottky rectifiers and GaN/AlGaN thyristorlike switches. The material properties which significantly influence the device design and performance are electron and hole diffusion lengths, recombination lifetimes and the critical field for electric breakdown. We have fabricated high standoff voltage (> 450 V) GaN Schot-tky rectifiers, and measured a lower limit for the critical field for electric breakdown to be (2 ± 0.5) · 106 V/cm. Diffusion lengths and recombination lifetimes were measured by electron beam induced current on unintentionally doped, n and p-type GaN samples grown by various epitaxial techniques. To establish the possible effects of linear dislocations and other defects on the transport and breakdown properties, the same sample surfaces were analyzed by AFM. On some of the samples, our measurements indicate that the dislocations appear to be electrically active and that recombination at dislocations occupying grain boundaries limit the minority carrier lifetime to the nanosecond range. Based on the measurements of transport properties, critical fields and the modeling of the devices proposed, our estimates indicate that DARPA/EPRI goals for megawatt electronics set at 5 kV standoff voltage and 200 A on-state current might be achieved with 15 – 20 μm thick layers grown by HVPE, at approximately 1. 1016 cm−3 doping levels, and 1 – 2cm2 device active area.

Aluminum nitride is a wurtzite structure III–V compound, although epitaxial layers of zincblende structure AIN have been made. AlN melts congruently at 2750°C with dissociation pressure of 9 atmospheres. Boules of AIN have been successfully grown by a sublimation-recondensation technique at 2300°C employing tungsten crucibles. Growth rates of 0.3 mm per hour were attained at 1 bar pressure of N2, and crystals up to 22 mm long have been grown. An analysis of the growth process shows that the 9.75eV dissociation energy of N2 is the limiting factor in the growth rate. The growth rate is predicted to depend on the N2 pressure, but no experiments in this area have yet been concluded. The most satisfactory crucible material found so far for growing AIN is single crystal tungsten.

A novel technique was used to melt zinc oxide powder. This techniques involves the pressurized RF induction heating of ZnO, contained in a water-cooled crucible. The ability to obtain a pool of molten ZnO enables the pulling of large diameter ZnO crystals using conventional melt growth processes. Centimeter-sized crystals were obtained in the preliminary experiments by cooling the ZnO melt. These crystals were analyzed for crystalline perfection and stoichiometry using x-ray diffiraction and photoluminescence. The semiconductor properties of these crystals were also measured. This technology can potentially provide large, low cost ZnO single crystal wafers for use in the fabrication of GaN blue diodes and blue lasers, high temperature / high power FETs, as well as homoepitaxy of ZnO wide band-gap devices. Single crystal zinc oxide also has potential application in the piezoelectric device market.

The surfaces of oxidized AlAs (AlOx) layers on Si(111) substrates are studied to understand the mechanism by which single crystal α-GaN can be grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on AlOx that appears to be an amorphous/fine-grain phase. Contact mode atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) and reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) are used to study the AIOx surface on which a GaN nucleation layer (GaN-NL) is grown. The results indicate that an oriented α-Ga2O3 layer is formed on AlOx which is covered by a GaAs cap layer during oxidation. We infer that the α-Ga2O3 acts as a surface template that provides the order necessary for the subsequent growth of single crystal α-GaN. Characterization using RHEED and selective area electron diffraction (SAD) in cross sectional transmission microscopy (XTEM) reveals that the in-plane crystallographic orientation has a unique alignment between the various layers – GaN, α-Ga2O3 and the Si substrate. This in-plane alignment is understood by considering the atomic arrangement of each material on the plane perpendicular to [111]si at each interface. Moreover a comparison is made between α-GaN grown on α-Ga2O3 and on α-A12O3(0001) to characterize structural defects in α-GaN. The formation of specific structural defects, a large number of planar defects run perpendicular to [111]si in α-GaN/α-Ga2O3 is discussed in conjunction with GaN-NL on α-Ga2O3.

Selective Area Flow Modulation Epitaxial growth of GaN is carried out in a low pressure Organometallic Vapor Phase Epitaxy reactor. This process is known to enhance reactant surface migration lengths on patterned group III-arsenide and phosphide growth surfaces. With this process, high quality laterally overgrown GaN epitaxial materials result. Under the ammonia rich growth conditions used, enhanced migration (by flux modulation) across masked regions of the substrate has not been observed. The mask materials were silicon dioxide and silicon nitride, both deposited on GaN/AlGaN buffer structures on sapphire and SiC substrates. Window stripes were patterned parallel and perpendicular to the (1100) crystal directions to observe the orientation dependence of the lateral growth rate. Structures exhibited heights above the mask surface as large as 30 microns and atomically smooth surfaces. With a periodic array of stripe window openings in the mask, planarized laterally overgrown surfaces are achieved after roughly 4 microns of overgrowth. Chemical assisted ion beam etching with chlorine gas was used to delineate defects in the selectively grown layers. Additional evidence on the defect reduction is given by Atomic Force and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopies.

Nanometer-scale GaN dots were successfully fabricated on sapphire using metalorganic chemical vapor deposition(MOCVD) by two-step method, including depositing around 500 IC and annealing at 1050 °C. The density of GaN dots is from 5×108cm−2 to 6×109 cm−2, and the size is around 40nm in diameter. The density and size of GaN dots are determined by an atomic force microscope(AFM), and they are controllable by changing temperature and duration of the growing. GaN dots only formed after annealing at high temperature, which is explained that the initial layer deposited around 500 °C is a high energy intermediate phase in which the large strain energy can not be relaxed because of the low temperature growing.

Ammonia as nitrogen precursor has been used to grow III-V nitrides by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on c-plane sapphire substrates. The efficiency of NH3 has been evaluated allowing the determination of the actual V/III flux ratio used during the GaN growth. The effects of the V/III ratio variation on the GaN layer properties have been investigated by photoluminescence (PL), Hall measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS). It is found that a high V/III ratio leads to the best material quality. Optimized GaN thick buffer layers have been used to grow GaN/AlGaN quantum well (QW) heterostructures. Their PL spectra exhibit well resolved emission peaks for QW thicknesses varying from 3 to 15 monolayers. From the variation of the QW energies as a function of well width, a piezoelectric field of 450 kV/cm is deduced.

The growth of GaN on silicon (Si) substrates by MOCVD is reported in this paper. The use of a high-temperature AIN buffer layer appears to be necessary to establish an initial template morphology for the subsequent growth of GaN. Nucleation modes of GaN on SiO2, (100) Si, and (111) Si are compared; it is shown that the spatial coherency among the nuclei is most preserved when the growth occurred on the hexagonal Si (111) surface. To circumvent the problem associated with cracking due to a thermal expansion mismatch, we also investigate the possibility of using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) scheme.

Progress made in the development of high performance power rectifiers and switches from silicon carbide are reviewed with emphasis on approaching the 100-fold reduction in the specific on-resistance of the drift region when compared with silicon devices with the same breakdown voltage. The highlights are: (a) Recently completed measurements of impact ionization coefficients in SiC indicate an even higher Baliga's figure of merit than projected earlier. (b) The commonly reported negative temperature co-efficient for breakdown voltage in SiC devices has been shown to arise at defects, allaying concerns that this may be intrinsic to the material. (c) Based upon fundamental considerations, it has been found that Schottky rectifiers offer superior on-state voltage drop than P-i-N rectifiers for reverse blocking voltages below 3000 volts. (d) Nearly ideal breakdown voltage has been experimentally obtained for Schottky diodes using an argon implanted edge termination. (e) Planar ion-implanted junctions have been successfully fabricated using oxide as a mask with high breakdown voltage and low leakage currents by using a filed plate edge termination. (f) High inversion layer mobility has been experimentally demonstrated on both 6H and 4H-SiC by using a deposited oxide layer as gate dielectric. (g) A novel, high-voltage, normally-off, accumulation-channel, MOSFET has been proposed and demonstrated with 50x lower specific on-resistance than silicon devices in spite of using logic-level gate drive voltages. These results indicate that SiC based power devices could become commercially viable in the 21st century if cost barriers can be overcome.

The production of large diameter, high quality boules of SiC is essential to realize the full potential of this important semiconductor material. The objective of this paper is to provide a state-of-the-art analysis of the key directions for SiC bulk growth research, as well as presenting our most recent empirical results. Based on an analytical review of current knowledge, the following topics concerning growth of large 6H and 4H-SiC bulk crystals are discussed: 1) thermodynamics of the vapor phase including the efficiency of crystal growth, 2) kinetics of growth including mass transport in the boundary layer and 3) defect formation processes including thermoelastic stress. In addition, results of growth modeling are summarized and direction for further work suggested. Results on growth of semi-insulating and 50–75 mm diameter 4H-SiC wafers are presented. A discussion on micropipes, which are currently the most harmful defect in SiC wafers is presented. Although several mechanisms, or combinations of mechanisms, cause micropipes in SiC boules grown by the seeded sublimation method, we have reduced micropipe densities by orders of magnitude over the last few years. This continual reduction and the production of wafers with micropipe densities of less than 1 cm-2 (with >1 cm2 areas void of micropipes), indicate that micropipes will be reduced to a level that makes high current devices viable and that they may soon be totally eliminated.

Edge termination is an important aspect in the design of high power p-n junction devices. In this paper, we compare the breakdown characteristics of 4H-SiC p+-n diodes with oxide passivation and with edge termination using either low or high energy ion implantations. N- and p-type epilayers of 4H-SiC were grown by chemical vapor deposition on n+ 4H-SiC wafers. Circular mesa structures of different diameters were patterned and isolated by reactive ion etching. Four types of samples were fabricated. The first group was not implanted or passivated and was left for control. The second type consisted of oxide-passivated diode structures while the third and fourth types were ion implanted with 30 keV Ar+ and 2.2 MeV He+ ions, respectively. The time dependent breakdown characteristics were determined using a fast voltage ramp technique. The reverse bias breakdown voltages and leakage currents of these diodes were different for the different types of the edge termination. Diodes terminated using 2.2 MeV ion implantation yielded the best breakdown characteristics. A majority of the diodes exhibited abrupt breakdown.

It is well-known that SiC wafer quality deficiencies are delaying the realization of outstandingly superior 4H-SiC power electronics. While efforts to date have centered on eradicating micropipes (i.e., hollow core super-screw dislocations with Burgers vectors > 2c), 4H-SiC wafers and epilayers also contain elementary screw dislocations (i.e., Burgers vector = lc with no hollow core) in densities on the order of thousands per cm 2, nearly 100-fold micropipe densities. While not nearly as detrimental to SiC device performance as micropipes, it has been previously shown that diodes containing elementary screw dislocations exhibit a 5% to 35% reduction in breakdown voltage, higher pre-breakdown reverse leakage current, softer reverse breakdown I-V knee, and concentrated microplasmic breakdown current filaments when measured under DC testing conditions. This paper details the impact of elementary screw dislocations on the experimentally observed reverse-breakdown pulse-failure characteristics of low-voltage (< 250 V) small-area (< 5 × 10-4 cm2) 4H-SiC p+n diodes. The presence of elementary screw dislocations did not significantly affect the failure properties of these diodes when subjected to non-adiabatic breakdown-bias pulsewidths ranging from 0.1 μs to 20 μs in duration. Diodes with and without elementary screw dislocations exhibited positive temperature coefficient of breakdown voltage and high junction failure power densities well above the failure power densities exhibited by highly reliable silicon power rectifiers. This preliminary result, based on measurements from one wafer of SiC diodes, suggests that highly reliable low-voltage SiC rectifiers may be attainable despite the presence of elementary screw dislocations.

Micro/nanopipes are linear defects along the c-axis of hexagonal polytypes of SiC and GaN that are currently the focus of much attention. It has been shown that these defects can be very detrimental to the electronic properties of devices manufactured from, at least, 6H-SiC. In this paper, the origin of these defects is discussed in terms of Frank's theory [1] that dislocations will have a hollow core when their Burgers vector is large. Two fundamental issues about such dislocations are addressed: their formation along the c-axis of the crystal, and their stability despite their large Burgers vectors [2]. The proposed model is based on the mosaic structure of sublimation-grown 6H- or 4H-SiC, and VPE-grown 2H-GaN on sapphire substrates. The presence of unit c-axis screw dislocations is attributed to the accommodation of low-angle twist boundaries in the mosaic structure. The formation of superscrew dislocations with large Burgers vector, which empty their cores to reduce the excessive strain energy there, is shown to be the result of 3c screw dislocations in the axis of triple junctions which “getter” the neighboring unit dislocations and simultaneously increase their diameter. The predictions of the model are compared with available data in the literature, and suggestions are made for the decrease of nano/micropipe density.

Thick, high quality 4H-SiC material suitable for high power devices has been grown in a hot-wall reactor. Recent improvements to the growth process have improved our thickness uniformity over a 50mm wafer to less than 1% and the doping uniformity to less than 5%, both values expressed as σ/mean.

A record breaking reverse blocking voltage of 5.5 kV was obtained on P-i-N diodes fabricated from a 85μm thick film. The on-state voltage drop was 5.4 V at 100 A/cm2. From this on-state voltage drop, the carrier lifetime was estimated in excess of 1μs.

Epitaxial titanium carbide is investigated as a low resistivity, high temperature stable Ohmic and Schottky contact to 4H and 6H SiC. The titanium carbide films were deposited at 500°C using co-evaporation of titanium (e-beam) and C60 (Knudsen cell) in a UHV system. Schottky diodes and TLM structures were fabricated on low and high doped SiC material respectively. The samples were annealed at 700 °C in a vacuum furnace, and electrical measurements were performed up to 300 °C.

The characteristics of SiC high-power devices are currently limited by the small area of the devices, which is usually less than 1 sq. mm. In order to increase device area, defect density in SiC epitaxial structures must be reduced. In this paper, we describe properties of silicon carbide epitaxial layers grown on 4H-SiC wafers with reduced micropipe density. These layers were grown by the vacuum sublimation method. Large area Schottky barriers (up to 8 mm2) were fabricated on SiC epitaxial layers and characterized.