Interplay between C-doping, threading dislocations, breakdown, and leakage in GaN on Si HEMT structures

Besendörfer S, Meißner E, Zweipfennig T, Yacoub H, Fahle D, Behmenburg H, Kalisch H, Vescan A, Friedrich J, Erlbacher T (2020)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

AIP Advances AIP Publishing

Book Volume: 10

Article Number: 045028

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1063/1.5141905

Abstract

This work describes electrical characteristics and the correlation to material properties of high electron mobility transistor structures with a C-doped GaN current blocking layer, grown either by an extrinsic or auto-doping process with different doping levels. Increasing degradation of crystalline quality in terms of threading dislocation density for increasing C-doping levels was observed for all samples. Different growth conditions used for the auto-doped samples played no role for overall degradation, but a higher fraction of threading screw dislocations was observed. Independent of the doping process, 90% of all TSDs were noted to act as strong leakage current paths through the AlGaN barrier. This was found statistically and was directly verified by conductive atomic force microscopy in direct correlation with defect selective etching. Vertical breakdown was observed to increase with increasing C-concentration and saturated for C-concentrations above around 1019 cm-3. This was attributed to an increasing compensation of free charge carriers until self-compensation takes place. A progressive influence of TDs for high C-concentrations might also play a role but could not be explicitly revealed for our material.

Authors with CRIS profile

Elke Meißner Lehrstuhl für Elektronische Bauelemente Tobias Erlbacher Lehrstuhl für Elektronische Bauelemente

Involved external institutions

Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen DE Germany (DE) AIXTRON SE DE Germany (DE) Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Systeme und Bauelementetechnologie (IISB) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Besendörfer, S., Meißner, E., Zweipfennig, T., Yacoub, H., Fahle, D., Behmenburg, H.,... Erlbacher, T. (2020). Interplay between C-doping, threading dislocations, breakdown, and leakage in GaN on Si HEMT structures. AIP Advances, 10(4). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5141905

MLA:

Besendörfer, S., et al. "Interplay between C-doping, threading dislocations, breakdown, and leakage in GaN on Si HEMT structures." AIP Advances 10.4 (2020).

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