Influence of surface trap states on RF/microwave performance of lateral AlGaN/GaN Schottky barrier diode

Abstract

In this paper, we have presented the influence of surface traps/states on RF and microwave performance of fully recessed Schottky anode AlGaN/GaN lateral Schottky barrier diode (L-SBD) using numerical modeling and simulation. During the etching/treatment of AlGaN or GaN surface, the surface traps are induced, whose physical modeling is proposed here. Through this study, the physical insights on the influence of surface states, near the 2DEG, on the DC and RF/microwave performance of the L-SBDs are presented. It was observed that induced donor states due to etching for recessed anode significantly affect the Schottky barrier and modify the tunneling behavior of anode/GaN interface. This influences the DC and RF/microwave characteristics of L-SBDs, which enhances the cut-off frequency of >140 GHz and high detector sensitivity of ${\beta }_V$ >1000 mV/mW.

Keywords:

• AlGaN/GaN
• Schottky barrier diode
• RF/Microwave
• surface traps
• detectors

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Mayank Shrivastava and Mr. Ankit Soni of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India; the authors acknowledge the support of Dr. Liu Yang, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China. Also the support of Dr. P. Sathyanarayanan, Dr. V. Velmurugan, Dr. A. Nirmala Grace and Mr. Kadiyam Rajshekar of Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).