Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Xie, Qingyun
• Niroula, John
• Rajput, Nitul S.
• Yuan, Mengyang
• Luo, Shisong
• Fu, Kai
• Isamotu, Mohamed Fadil
• Palash, Rafid Hassan
• Sikder, Bejoy
• Eisner, Savannah R.
• Surdi, Harshad
• Belanger, Aidan J.
• Darmawi-Iskandar, Patrick K.
• Aksamija, Zlatan
• Nemanich, Robert J.
• Goodnick, Stephen M.
• Senesky, Debbie G.
• Hunter, Gary W.
• Chowdhury, Nadim
• Zhao, Yuji
• Palacios, Tomás

Titel

Device and material investigations of GaN enhancement-mode transistors for Venus and harsh environments

Ist Teil von

• Applied physics letters, 2024-04, Vol.124 (17)

Ort / Verlag

Melville: American Institute of Physics

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Quelle

AIP Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This Letter reports the device and material investigations of enhancement-mode p-GaN-gate AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) for Venus exploration and other harsh environment applications. The GaN transistor in this work was subjected to prolonged exposure (11 days) in a simulated Venus environment (460 °C, 94 bar, complete chemical environment including CO2/N2/SO2). The mechanisms affecting the transistor performance and structural integrity in harsh environment were analyzed using a variety of experimental, simulation, and modeling techniques, including in situ electrical measurement (e.g., burn-in) and advanced microscopy (e.g., structural deformation). Through transistor, Transmission Line Method (TLM), and Hall-effect measurements vs temperature, it is revealed that the mobility decrease is the primary cause of reduction of on-state performance of this GaN transistor at high temperature. Material analysis of the device under test (DUT) confirmed the absence of foreign elements from the Venus atmosphere. No inter-diffusion of the elements (including the gate metal) was observed. The insights of this work are broadly applicable to the future design, fabrication, and deployment of robust III-N devices for harsh environment operation.