Physics-based full-band GaN high-electron-mobility transistor simulation suggests upper bound of LO phonon lifetime

Intrinsic limits to device performance arise from fundamental material properties that define the best achievable operation, independent of engineering constraints. In GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs), hot longitudinal optical (LO) phonons can act as an intrinsic performance bottleneck by reducing electron saturation velocity, output current, and transconductance—metrics that are important for device operation. While bulk GaN studies report LO phonon lifetimes of ∼1 ps, leading to strong nonequilibrium phonon populations, ungated heterostructures show much shorter lifetimes of only tens of femtoseconds. Because direct measurement in HEMTs is challenging, the true impact of hot phonons remains uncertain. Full-band transport simulations of a fabricated GaN HEMT presented here reveal that LO phonon lifetimes must be ≲40 fs to reproduce measured I–V characteristics, consistent with ultrafast decay observed in GaN heterostructures. We show that even this ultrafast LO-phonon decay is insufficient to fully suppress hot-phonon effects: the residual nonequilibrium LO population continues to limit the current density at high bias. Moreover, when the LO-phonon lifetime exceeds a few tens of femtoseconds, a pronounced hot-phonon bottleneck emerges, leading to a substantial current-density suppression that is inconsistent with experimental observations.