Study of interface barrier of SiNx/GaN interface for nitrogen-polar GaN based high electron mobility transistors

The SiNx/GaN interface barrier height for N-polar GaN based metal-insulator-semiconductor high electron mobility transistors (MISHEMTs) was investigated. N-polar SiNx/GaN/AlGaN/GaN MISHEMT structures with different GaN cap thicknesses were grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. The properties of the SiNx/GaN interface are of critical importance to device operation and modeling in these devices. An analytical expression for the pinch-off voltage of the HEMT was obtained, and capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements with different Schottky metals were used to extract the barrier height. The Fermi level at the interface was found to be pinned at approximately 1 eV with respect to GaN conduction band edge, irrespective of the work function of the gate metal. Hall measurements of the two-dimensional electron gas density were found to corroborate the predicted interface barrier height. An approximate value for interface charge causing this pinning was calculated to be 4.5×1012 cm−2.