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Updated: Aug 8, 2025

Plasma-assisted Molecular Beam Epitaxy of N-polar InAlN-barrier High-electron-mobility Transistors
Published on: November 24, 2016
Low Trapping Effects and High Electron Confinement in Short AlN/GaN-On-SiC HEMTs by Means of a Thin AlGaN Back
Kathia Harrouche1, Srisaran Venkatachalam1, Lyes Ben-Hammou1
1CNRS-IEMN, Institute of Electronic, Microelectronic and Nanotechnology, 59652 Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France.
Abstract:
In this paper, we report on an enhancement of mm-wave power performances with a vertically scaled AlN/GaN heterostructure. An AlGaN back barrier is introduced underneath a non-intentionally doped GaN channel layer, enabling the prevention of punch-through effects and related drain leakage current under a high electric field while using a moderate carbon concentration into the buffer. By carefully tuning the Al concentration into the back barrier layer, the optimized heterostructure offers a unique combination of electron confinement and low trapping effects up to high drain bias for a gate length as short as 100 nm. Consequently, pulsed (CW) Load-Pull measurements at 40 GHz revealed outstanding performances with a record power-added efficiency of 70% (66%) under high output power density at VDS = 20 V. These results demonstrate the interest of this approach for future millimeter-wave applications.
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