Enhancement of radiation hardness of InP-based HEMT with double Si-doped plane*

Abstract

An anti-radiation structure of InP-based high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) has been proposed and optimized with double Si-doped planes. The additional Si-doped plane under channel layer has made a huge promotion in channel current, transconductance, current gain cut-off frequency, and maximum oscillation frequency of InP-based HEMTs. Moreover, direct current (DC) and radio frequency (RF) characteristic properties and their reduction rates have been compared in detail between single Si-doped and double Si-doped structures after 75-keV proton irradiation with dose of 5 × 1011 cm−2, 1 × 1012 cm−2, and 5 × 1012 cm−2. DC and RF characteristics for both structures are observed to decrease gradually as irradiation dose rises, which particularly show a drastic drop at dose of 5 × 1012 cm−2. Besides, characteristic degradation degree of the double Si-doped structure is significantly lower than that of the single Si-doped structure, especially at large proton irradiation dose. The enhancement of proton radiation tolerance by the insertion of another Si-doped plane could be accounted for the tremendously increased native carriers, which are bound to weaken substantially the carrier removal effect by irradiation-induced defects.