• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.682-687
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• 2014

We have performed reverse gate bias stress tests on AlGaN/GaN-on-Si Heterostructure FETs (HFETs). The shift of threshold voltage ($V_{th}$) and the reduction of on-current were observed from the stressed devices. These changes of the device parameters were not permanent. We investigated the temporary behavior of the stressed devices by analyzing the temperature dependence of the instabilities and TCAD simulation. As the baseline temperature of the electrical stress tests increased, the changes of the $V_{th}$ and the on-current were decreased. The on-current reduction was caused by the positive shift of the $V_{th}$ and the increased resistance of the gate-to-source and the gate-to-drain access region. Our experimental results suggest that electron-trapping effect into the shallow traps in devices is the main cause of observed instabilities.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2011.07a
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• pp.1418-1419
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• 2011

차세대 전력 반도체인 고전압 GaN 쇼트키 장벽 다이오드의 역방향 특성을 개선하기 위해서 열 산화공정이 제안되었다. AlGaN/GaN 에피탁시 위에 쇼트키 장벽 다이오드 구조가 제작되었으며, 쇼트키 컨택은 증착 후 $450^{\circ}C$에서 산화되었다. 열 산화공정이 메사 측벽의 AlGaN 및 GaN 표면에 $AlO_x$ 및 $GaO_x$를 형성하여 표면으로 흐르는 누설전류를 억제한다. 표면 및 GaN 버퍼를 통한 누설전류는 열 산화 공정 이후 100 ${\mu}m$-너비당 51.3 nA에서 24.9 pA로 1/2000 배 수준으로 감소하였다. 표면 산화물 형성으로 인하여 생성된 Ga-vacancy와 Al-vacancy는 acceptor로 동작하여 surface band bending을 증가시켜 쇼트키 장벽 높이를 증가시킨다. 애노드-캐소드 간격이 5 ${\mu}m$인 제작된 소자는 0.99 eV의 높은 쇼트키 장벽 높이를 획득하여, -100 V에서 0.002 A/$cm^2$의 낮은 누설전류를 확보하였다. 애노드-캐소드 간격이 5에서 10, 20, 50 ${\mu}m$로 증가되면 소자의 항복전압은 348 V에서 396, 606, 941 V로 증가되었다. 열 산화공정은 전력용 GaN 전자소자의 누설전류감소와 항복전압 증가를 위한 후처리 공정으로 적합하다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.183-184
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• 2013

Two main MBE growth techniques have been used: plasma-assisted MBE (PA-MBE), which utilizes a rf plasma to supply active nitrogen, and ammonia MBE, in which nitrogen is supplied by pyrolysis of NH3 on the sample surface during growth. PA-MBE is typically performed under metal-rich growth conditions, which results in the formation of gallium droplets on the sample surface and a narrow range of conditions for optimal growth. In contrast, high-quality GaN films can be grown by ammonia MBE under an excess nitrogen flux, which in principle should result in improved device uniformity due to the elimination of droplets and wider range of stable growth conditions. A drawback of ammonia MBE, on the other hand, is a serious memory effect of NH3 condensed on the cryo-panels and the vicinity of heaters, which ruins the control of critical growth stages, i.e. the native oxide desorption and the surface reconstruction, and the accurate control of V/III ratio, especially in the initial stage of seed layer growth. In this paper, we demonstrate that the reliable and reproducible growth of GaN on Si (110) substrates is successfully achieved by combining two MBE growth technologies using rf plasma and ammonia and setting a proper growth protocol. Samples were grown in a MBE system equipped with both a nitrogen rf plasma source (SVT) and an ammonia source. The ammonia gas purity was ＞99.9999% and further purified by using a getter filter. The custom-made injector designed to focus the ammonia flux onto the substrate was used for the gas delivery, while aluminum and gallium were provided via conventional effusion cells. The growth sequence to minimize the residual ammonia and subsequent memory effects is the following: (1) Native oxides are desorbed at $750^{\circ}C$ (Fig. (a) for [$1^-10$] and [001] azimuth) (2) 40 nm thick AlN is first grown using nitrogen rf plasma source at $900^{\circ}C$ nder the optimized condition to maintain the layer by layer growth of AlN buffer layer and slightly Al-rich condition. (Fig. (b)) (3) After switching to ammonia source, GaN growth is initiated with different V/III ratio and temperature conditions. A streaky RHEED pattern with an appearance of a weak ($2{\times}2$) reconstruction characteristic of Ga-polarity is observed all along the growth of subsequent GaN layer under optimized conditions. (Fig. (c)) The structural properties as well as dislocation densities as a function of growth conditions have been investigated using symmetrical and asymmetrical x-ray rocking curves. The electrical characteristics as a function of buffer and GaN layer growth conditions as well as the growth sequence will be also discussed. Figure: (a) RHEED pattern after oxide desorption (b) after 40 nm thick AlN growth using nitrogen rf plasma source and (c) after 600 nm thick GaN growth using ammonia source for (upper) [110] and (lower) [001] azimuth.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.116-117
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• 2006

I-D ZnO nanostructures were fabricated by thermal evaporation method on Si(100), GaN and $Al_2O_3$ substrates without a catalyst at the reaction temperature of $700^{\circ}C$. Only pure Zn powder was used as a source material and Ar was used as a carrier gas. The shape and growth direction of synthesized ZnO nanostructures is determined by the crystal structure and the lattice mismatch between ZnO and substrates. The ZnO nanostructure on Si substrate were inclined regardless of their substrate orientation. The origin of ZnO/Si interface is highly lattice-mismatched and the surface of the Si substrate inevitably has the $SiO_2$ layer. The ZnO nanostructure on the $Al_2O_3$ substrate was synthesized into the rod shape and grown into particular direction. For the GaN substrate, however, ZnO nanostructure with the honeycomb-like shape was vertically grown, owing to the similar lattice parameter with GaN substrate.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.38 no.10
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• pp.671-677
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• 2001

A RuO$_2$ Schottky photo-detector was designed and fabricated with GaN layers on the sapphire substrate. For good absorption of UV light, an epitaxial structure with undoped GaN(0.5 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$)/n￣-GaN(0.1${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$)/n＋-GaN(1.5${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$) was grown by MOCVD. The structure had the carrier concentrations of 3.8$\times$10$^{18}$ cm￣$^3$, the mobility of 283$\textrm{cm}^2$/V.s. After ECR etching process for mesa structure with the diameter of about 500${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, Al ohmic contact was formed on GaN layer. After proper passivation between the contacts with Si$_3$/N$_4$, was formed on undoped GaN layer. The fabricated Schottky diode had a specific contact resistance of 1.15$\times$10$^{-5}$ ［$\Omega$.$\textrm{cm}^2$］. It has a low leakage current of 305 pA at -5 V, which was attributed by stable characteristics of RuO$_2$ Schottky contact. In optical measurement, it showed the high UV to visible extinction ratio of 10$^{5}$ and very high responsivity of 0.23 A/W at the wavelength of 365nm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.23-23
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• 2009

GaN-based nitride semiconductors have attracted considerable attention in high-brightness light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) covering from green to ultraviolet spectral range. LED and LD heterostructures are usually grown on (0001)-$Al_2O_3$. The large lattice mismatch between $Al_2O_3$ substrates and the GaN layers leads to a high density of defects(dislocations and stacking faults). Moreover, Ga and N atoms are arranged along the polar [0001] crystallographic direction, which leads to spontaneous polarization. In addition, in the InGaN/GaN MQWs heterostructures, stress applied along the same axis can also give rise to piezoelectric polarization. The total polarization, which is the sum of spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations, is aligned along the [0001] direction of the wurtzite heterostructures. The change in the total polarization across the heterolayers results in high interface charge densities and spatial separation of the electron and hole wave functions, redshifting the photoluminescence peak and decreasing the peak intensity. The effect of polarization charges in the GaN-based heterostructures can be eliminated by growing along the non-polar [$11\bar{2}0$] (a-axis) or [$1\bar{1}00$] (m-axis) orientation instead of thecommonly used polar [0001] (c-axis). For non-polar GaN growth on non-polar substrates, the GaN films have high density of planar defects (basal stacking fault BSFs, prismatic stacking fault PSFs), because the SFs are formed on the basal plane (c-plane) due to their low formation energy. A significant reduction in defect density was recently achieved by applying blocking layer such as SiN, AlN, and AlGaN in non-polar GaN. In this work, we were performed systematic studies of the defects in the nonpolar GaN by conventional and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.737-745
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• 2017

A 6-GHz-to-18-GHz monolithic nonuniform distributed power amplifier has been designed using the load modulation of increased series gate capacitance. This amplifier was implemented using a $0.25-{\mu}m$ AlGaN/GaN HEMT process on a SiC substrate. With the proposed load modulation, we enhanced the amplifier's simulated performance by 4.8 dB in output power, and by 13.1% in power-added efficiency (PAE) at the upper limit of the bandwidth, compared with an amplifier with uniform gate coupling capacitors. Under the pulse-mode condition of a $100-{\mu}s$ pulse period and a 10% duty cycle, the fabricated power amplifier showed a saturated output power of 39.5 dBm (9 W) to 40.4 dBm (11 W) with an associated PAE of 17% to 22%, and input/output return losses of more than 10 dB within 6 GHz to 18 GHz.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.5 no.5
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• pp.79-84
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• 1996

A $1\;{\mu}m$ thick n-type GaAs layer with Si doping density of $1{\times}10^{17}/cm^{3}$ and a $500{\AA}$ thick undoped single crystalline AlAs layer were subsequently grown by molecular beam epitaxy on the $n^{+}$ GaAs substrate. The AlAs/GaAs layer was oxidized in $N_{2}$ bubbled $H_{2}O$ vapor($95^{\circ}C$) ambient at $400^{\circ}C$ for 2 and 3 hours. From the result of XPS analysis, small amounts of $As_{2}O_{3}$, AlAs, and elemental As were found in the samples oxidized up to 2 hours. After 3 hours oxidation, however, various oxides related to As were dissolved and As atoms were diffused out toward the oxide surface. The as-grown AlAs/GaAs layer was selectively converted to $Al_{2}O_{3}/GaAs$ at the oxidation temperature $400^{\circ}C$ for 3 hours. The oxidation temperature and time is very critical to stop the oxidation at the AlAs/GaAs interface and to form a defect-free surface layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.08a
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• pp.232-232
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• 2010

Recently light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been expected as the new generation light sources because of their advantages such as small size, long lifetime and energy-saving. GaN, as a wide band gap material, is widely used as a material of LEDs and GaN nanorods are the one of the most widely investigated nanostructure which has advantages for the light extraction of LEDs and increasing the active area by making the cylindrical core-shell structure. Lately GaN nanorods are fabricated by various techniques, such as selective area growth, vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) technique. But these techniques have some disadvantages. Selective area growth technique is too complicated and expensive to grow the rods. And in the case of VLS technique, GaN nanorods are not vertically aligned well and the metal catalyst may act as the impurity. So we just tried to grow the GaN nanorods on Si substrate without catalyst to get the vertically well aligned nanorods without impurity. First we deposited the AlN buffer layer on Si substrate which shows more vertical growth mode than sapphire substrate. After the buffer growth, we flew trimethylgallium (TMGa) as the III group source and ammonia as the V group source. And during the GaN growth, we kept the ammonia flow stable and periodically changed the flow rate of TMGa to change the growth mode of the nanorods. Finally, as the optimization, we changed the various growth conditions such as the growth temperature, the working pressure, V/III ratio and the doping level. And we are still in the process to reduce the diameter of the nanorods and to extend the length of the nanorods simultaneously. In this study, we focused on the shape changing of GaN nanorods with different growth conditions. So we confirmed the shape of the nanorods by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and carried out the Photoluminescence (PL) measurement and x-ray diffraction (XRD) to examine the crystal quality difference between samples. Detailed results will be discussed.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.76-79
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• 2016

This paper describes the successful development and the performance of X-band 50 W pulsed power amplifier using a 50 W GaN-on-SiC high electron mobility transistor. The GaN HEMT with a gate length of $0.25{\mu}m$ and a total gate width of 12 mm were fabricated. The X-band pulsed power amplifier exhibited an output power of 50 W with a power gain of 6 dB in a frequency range of 9.2~9.5 GHz. It also shows a maximum output power density of 4.16 W/mm. This 50 W GaN HEMT and X-band 50 W pulsed power amplifier are suitable for the radar systems and related applications in X-band.