Comparison of atomic layer deposited Al2O3 and (Ta2O5)0.12(Al2O3)0.88 gate dielectrics on the characteristics of GaN-capped AlGaN/GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors

The current research investigates the potential advantages of replacing Al2O3 with (Ta2O5)(0.12)(Al2O3)(0.88) as a higher dielectric constant (kappa) gate dielectric for GaN-based metal-oxide-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors (MOS-HEMTs). The electrical characteristics of GaN-capped AlGaN/GaN MOS-HEMT devices with (Ta2O5)(0.12)(Al2O3)(0.88) as the gate dielectric are compared to devices with Al2O3 gate dielectric and devices without any gate dielectric (Schottky HEMTs). Compared to the Al2O3 MOS-HEMT, the (Ta2O5)(0.12)(Al2O3)(0.88) MOS-HEMT achieves a larger capacitance and a smaller absolute threshold voltage, together with a higher two-dimensional electron gas carrier concentration. This results in a superior improvement of the output characteristics with respect to the Schottky HEMT, with higher maximum and saturation drain current values observed from DC current-voltage measurements. Gate transfer measurements also show a higher transconductance for the (Ta2O5)(0.12)(Al2O3)(0.88) MOS-HEMT. Furthermore, from OFF-state measurements, the (Ta2O5)(0.12)(Al2O3)(0.88) MOS-HEMT shows a larger reduction of the gate leakage current in comparison to the Al2O3 MOS-HEMT. These results demonstrate that the increase in kappa of (Ta2O5)(0.12)(Al2O3)(0.88) compared with Al2O3 leads to enhanced device performance when the ternary phase is used as a gate dielectric in the GaN-based MOS-HEMT.