Effects of 3 MeV proton irradiations on AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

Abstract

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) are exposed to 3 MeV protons irradiation. The drain saturation current decreases 20% and the maximum transconductance decreases 5% at a fluence of 1× 1015 protons/cm2. As fluence increases, the thread voltage is shifted toward more positive values. After proton irradiation, the gate leakage current increases. The degradation caused by 1.8 MeV proton is significantly higher than by 3 MeV proton irradiation at the same fluence. The radiation damage area and the density of vacancies at a given depth are obtained from software SRIM. As the energy of the incident proton increases, the non-ionizing energy transferred to the crystal lattice decreases. It is concluded that vacancies introduced by proton irradiation may be the primary reason for the degradations of electrical characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMT.