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Due to its high breakdown electric field, the ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor AlGaN has garnered much attention recently as a promising channel material for next-generation high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). A comprehensive experimental study of the effects of Al composition x on the transport and structural properties is lacking. We report the charge control and transport properties of polarization-induced 2D electron gases (2DEGs) in strained AlGaN quantum well channels in molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown AlN/AlxGa1−xN/AlN double heterostructures by systematically varying the Al content from x = 0 (GaN) to x = 0.74, spanning energy bandgaps of the conducting HEMT channels from 3.49 to 4.9 eV measured by photoluminescence. This results in a tunable 2DEG density from 0 to 3.7 × 1013 cm2. The room temperature mobilities of x ≥ 0.25 AlGaN channel HEMTs were limited by alloy disorder scattering to below 50 cm2/(V.s) for these 2DEG densities, leaving ample room for further heterostructure design improvements to boost mobilities. A characteristic alloy fluctuation energy of ≥1.8 eV for electron scattering in AlGaN alloy is estimated based on the temperature dependent electron transport experiments.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
Characteristics of transport properties in ultra-wide bandgap Al0.65Ga0.35N channel HEMTs with low contact resistance and high breakdown voltage (>2.5 kV)
Ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) Al0.65Ga0.35N channel high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) were deposited using a close-coupled showerhead metal-organic chemical vapor deposition reactor on AlN-on-sapphire templates to investigate the effect of transport properties of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) on the epitaxial structure design. The impact of various scattering phenomena on AlGaN channel HEMTs was analyzed with respect to the channel, buffer, and AlN interlayer design, revealing that the alloy disorder and ionized impurity scattering mechanisms were predominant, limiting the mobility of 2DEG up to 180 cm2/Vs for a sheet charge density of 1.1 × 1013 cm−2. A surface roughness of <1 nm (2 μm × 2 μm atomic force microscopy scan) was achieved for the epitaxial structures demonstrating superior crystalline quality. The fabricated HEMT device showed state-of-the-art contact resistivity (ρc = 8.35 × 10^−6 Ω · cm2), low leakage current (<10^−6 A/mm), high ION/IOFF ratio (>10^5), a breakdown voltage of 2.55 kV, and a Baliga's figure of merit of 260 MW/cm2. This study demonstrates the optimization of the structural design of UWBG AlGaN channel HEMTs and its effect on transport properties to obtain state-of-the-art device performance.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2338683
- PAR ID:
- 10603859
- Publisher / Repository:
- AIP publishing
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Applied Physics Letters
- Volume:
- 126
- Issue:
- 15
- ISSN:
- 0003-6951
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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