Gallium nitride junction field effect transistors for high-temperature operation
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
- Emcore Corp., Somerset, NJ (United States)
- Hughes Research Labs., Malibu, CA (United States)
GaN is an attractive material for use in high-temperature or high-power electronic devices due to its high bandgap (3.39 eV), high breakdown field ({approximately}5 {times} 10{sup 6} V/cm), high saturation drift velocity (2.7 {times} 10{sup 7} cm/s), and chemical inertness. To this end, Metal Semiconductor FETs (MESFETs), High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs), Heterostructure FETs (HFETs), and Metal Insulator Semiconductor FETs (MISFETs) have all been reported based on epitaxial AlN/GaN structures (Khan 1993a,b; Binari 1994 and 1995). GaN Junction Field Effect Transistors (JFETs), however, had not been reported until recently (Zolper 1996b). JFETs are attractive for high-temperature operation due to the inherently higher thermal stability of the p/n junction gate of a JFET as compared to the Schottky barrier gate of a MESFET or HFET. In this paper the authors present the first results for elevated temperature performance of a GaN JFET. Although the forward gate properties are well behaved at higher temperatures, the reverse characteristics show increased leakage at elevated temperature. However, the increased date leakage alone does not explain the observed increase in drain current with temperature. Therefore, they believe this first device is limited by temperature activated substrate conduction.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); National Science Foundation, Washington, DC (United States); Office of Naval Research, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 244677
- Report Number(s):
- SAND--96-1417C; CONF-9606159--5; ON: DE96011825; CNN: Grant DMR-9421109; Grant N00014-92-5-1895
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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