Surface states in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors: Quantitative energetic profiles and dynamics of the surface Fermi level

Yury Turkulets, Ilan Shalish

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We present a method to obtain quantitative profiles of surface state charge density and monitor its dynamics under various stress conditions in high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) devices. The method employs optical spectroscopy of the channel current at various bias conditions. We test the method on a classical AlGaN/GaN HEMT structure. To analyze the results, we propose a model, according to which the energy distribution of the surface charge density may be obtained from the derivative of the channel photocurrent. The proposed method is applied to fully fabricated transistors and can be measured under any device bias combination. This way, it is possible to explore the effect of device operating conditions on the surface state charge. This feature should be especially useful in studies of the various surface charge migration effects in nitride HEMTs. An important by-product of the method is a quantitative assessment of the energy position of the surface Fermi level and its dynamics under various bias conditions.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number023502
JournalApplied Physics Letters
Volume115
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 8 Jul 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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