Diamond field-effect transistors for RF power electronics: Novel NO2 hole doping and low-temperature deposited Al2O3 passivation

Diamond possesses a combination of exceptional physical properties and is expected to be used as a semiconductor material in high-efficiency and high-power electronic devices. In this study, hole doping was observed when using NO2 molecules on a H-diamond surface. The activation energy of hole concentration in NO2/H-diamond was measured as 0.006 eV, and holes were fully activated at room temperature. A thermal stabilization of the hole channel was realized by passivation with an atomic-layer-deposited Al2O3 layer. The passivation method enabled the realization of a thermally stable high-performance diamond field-effect transistor (FET), which exhibited high-performance DC and RF characteristics. NO2 hole-doping and Al2O3-passivation technologies enabled reproducible measurements of MOS structure electric properties. Such technologies also facilitated observations of two-dimensional holes at the MOS interface and type-II band alignment of Al2O3/NO2/H- diamond. Additionally, the band diagram under various gate bias conditions was proposed on the basis of capacitance-voltage measurements and analysis using Poisson's equations. (C) 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics