Prepassivation surface treatment effects on pulsed and dc I-V performance of AlGaN∕GaN high-electron-mobility transistors

This study has examined the effects that various prepassivation plasma surface treatments had on pulsed and dc I-V characteristics of AlGaN∕GaN high-electron-mobility transistors. Pulsed I-V current recovery data indicates that C2F6, NH3, O2, and Cl2 plasma treatments can be used in conjunction with plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited silicon nitride to significantly reduce rf dispersion. The different prepassivation surface treatments, however, produced little variation in dc I-V parameters such as gate leakage current, interdevice isolation current, and off-state breakdown voltage as compared to untreated passivated samples.