Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Plasma-assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy of N-polar InAlN-barrier High-electron-mobility Transistors
Published on: November 24, 2016
Comprehensive Schottky Barrier Height Behavior and Reliability Instability with Ni/Au and Pt/Ti/Pt/Au on AlGaN/GaN
Surajit Chakraborty1, Tae-Woo Kim1
1Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 44610, Korea.
Abstract:
The reliability instability of inhomogeneous Schottky contact behaviors of Ni/Au and Pt/Ti/Pt/Au gate contacts on AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) was investigated via off-state stress and temperature. Under the off-state stress condition, Pt/Ti/Pt/Au HEMT showed abruptly reduced reverse leakage current, which improved the Schottky barrier height (SBH) from 0.46 to 0.69 eV by suppression of the interfacial donor state. As the temperature increased, the reverse leakage current of the Pt/Ti/Pt/Au AlGaN/GaN HEMT at 308 K showed more reduction under the same off-state stress condition while that of the Ni/Au AlGaN/GaN HEMT increased. However, with temperatures exceeding 308 K under the same off-state stress conditions, the reverse leakage current of the Pt/Ti/Pt/Au AlGaN/GaN HEMT increases, which can be intensified using the inverse piezoelectric effect. Based on this phenomenon, the present work reveals the necessity for analyzing the concurrent SBH and reliability instability due to the interfacial trap states of the MS contacts.
Related Concept Videos
Metal-Semiconductor Junctions
Schottky Barriers
Schottky barriers arise when a metal with a work function (Φm) contacts a semiconductor with a different work function (Φs). Initially, electrons transfer until the Fermi levels of the metal and semiconductor align at equilibrium. For instance, if Φm > Φs, the semiconductor Fermi level is higher than the metal's before contact. The...
Schottky Barrier Diode
Biasing of Metal-Semiconductor Junctions
In Schottky junctions, where the semiconductor is n-type, applying a positive voltage to the metal relative to the semiconductor reduces its Fermi...
P-N junction
Fermi Level Dynamics
Electron affinity in semiconductors refers to the energy gap between the minimum of its conduction band and the vacuum level and it is a critical parameter in determining how easily a semiconductor can accept additional electrons.
The work...
MOSFET: Enhancement Mode
In their basic form, enhancement-mode MOSFETs are typically non-conductive when the gate-source voltage (Vgs) is zero. This default 'off' state means no...

