Temperature dependent DC characteristics of an InP/InGaAs/InGaAsP HBT

We report the DC characteristics of n-p-n InP/InGaAs/InGaAsP HBT's which have a composite-collector structure designed to improve the breakdown and gain. The devices exhibit common-emitter current gain of greater than 8 for over 9 orders of magnitude of collector current and breakdown voltages greater than 10 V. The DC gain for a typical device decreases from 40 at room temperature to 8 at 90 K. Over the same temperature range the collector-current ideality factor increases from 1.04 to 1.46, and the base current ideality factor is 0.05 to 0.1 larger than these values. We suggest that the high collector-current ideality factor and the lower gain at the lower temperatures is due to the increasing importance of tunneling of current across the emitter-base junction. The devices with the InGaAs/InGaAsP composite-collector structure offer better common-base turn-on behavior than those with InGaAs/InP as the collector structure, without the breakdown behavior being compromised.>