from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
We studied the influence of the diamond deposition on the degradation of Schottky gate electrodes (i.e. Ir or IrO2) and on the electrical characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). Thermally stable Schottky gate electrodes are necessary to withstand high temperatures and aggressive conditions (>95% hydrogen-containing plasma) during diamond chemical vapour deposition (CVD) process. In present study, the diamond films were selectively deposited on the AlGaN/GaN circular HEMT by focused (ellispoidal cavity reactor) and linear antenna (surface wave) microwave plasma at different temperatures from 400°C to 1100°C. The preliminary results on electrical measurements on the diamond-coated c-HEMTs showed degraded electrical properties comparing to c-HEMTs before deposition process, which was attributed to degradation of the Ir gate electrodes even at temperatures as low as 400°C. On the other hand, metal oxide gate electrode layer (IrO2) can withstand diamond CVD process even at high temperatures (~900°C) which make it suitable for fabrication of all-in-diamond c-HEMT devices for high-power applications.
Keywords: GaN HEMT, CVD diamond, iridium oxide, thermal stability, IV characteristics© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.