High-Temperature Performance of AlN MESFETs With Epitaxially Grown n-Type AlN Channel Layers

We fabricated AlN metal semiconductor field effect transistors (MESFETs) with an epitaxially grown n-type AlN channel layer and characterized the temperature dependence of their device properties. As the temperature was varied from room temperature to 500°C, maximum drain current increased from 0.42 to 45 mA/mm and maximum transconductance increased from 0.05 to 4.5 mS/mm. This enhanced device performance with increasing temperature is attributed to increased carrier concentration in n-type AlN due to the large ionization energy of Si donors. Owing to a large Schottky barrier height of 2.08 eV for the Ni gate electrode/n-type AlN interface, reverse leakage current is less than <tex-math notation="LaTeX">10^-10 </tex-math> A/mm at temperatures ranging from room temperature to 500°C. Off-state breakdown voltage is as high as 1720 V for gate-drain spacing of 16 <tex-math notation="LaTeX">μ m </tex-math> . These results indicate that AlN MESFETs are promising for high-voltage electronic devices operating at high temperature.