300°C operation of normally-off AlGaN/GaN MOSFET with low leakage current and high on/off current ratio

Abstract

300°C operation of a normally-off AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) is successfully demonstrated, which is fabricated using a self-terminating gate recess etching technique. At 300°C, by employing a 15 nm-thick Al2O3 as the gate dielectric deposited by atomic layer deposition, the fabricated normally-off MOSFET exhibits a threshold voltage (Vth) of 3.2 V, a low off-state leakage current of ∼10-7 A/mm and a low forward gate leakage current of ∼10-7 A/mm. Thus, a high on/off current ratio of ∼ 10 6 is obtained. Furthermore, the normally-off MOSFET also exhibits small variations in terms of its Vth from room temperature to 300°C with a maximum relative variation of 6.7% in a such temperature range. These results make this normally-off AlGaN/GaN MOSFET very promising for high-temperature digital electronics. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014.