IEEE ELECTRON DEVICE LETTERS, VOL. 35, NO.

1, JANUARY 2014

27

Impact of Donor Traps on the 2DEG and Electrical

Behavior of AlGaN/GaN MISFETs
Giorgia Longobardi, Member, IEEE, Florin Udrea, Member, IEEE, Stephen Sque, Member, IEEE,

Godefridus A. M. Hurkx, Jeroen Croon, Ettore Napoli, Member, IEEE, and Jan Sonsk,
Member, IEEE

Abstract As an important step in understanding trap-related

mechanisms in AlGaN/GaN transistors, the physical properties
of surface states have been analyzed through the study of the
transfer characteristics of a MISFET. This letter focused initially
on the relationship between donor parameters (concentration and
energy level) and electron density in the channel in AlGaN/GaN
heterostructures. This analysis was then correlated to dc and
pulsed measurements of the transfer characteristics of a MISFET,
where the gate bias was found to modulate either the channel
density or the donor states. Traps-free and traps-frozen TCAD
simulations were performed on an equivalent device to capture
the donor behavior. A donor concentration of 1.14 1013 cm2
with an energy level located 0.2 eV below the conduction band
edge gave the best fit to measurements. With the approach
described here, we were able to analyze the region of the MISFET
that corresponds to the drift region of a conventional HEMT.
Index Terms Gallium nitride (GaN), metalinsulator
semiconductor field-effect transistor (MISFET), two-dimensional
electron gas (2DEG), surface traps.

I. I NTRODUCTION

ALLIUM Nitride represents a promising material for

future generations of high-power and high-frequency
devices. Due to the piezoelectric nature typical of group III-V
materials, heterostructure-based devices such as High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) and Schottky Barrier
Diodes (SBDs) benefit from very high channel charge density
(1 1013 cm2 ) without any intentional doping in the
structure [1]. Surface donors (neutral when occupied and
positive when empty) are known to be a major source of
electrons in the 2DEG [2][6]. They are therefore crucial trap
states that change the electrical behavior of the AlGaN/GaN
interface and have an impact on the stability and reliability of
GaN-based devices [7]. Several authors have previously studied the relationship between donor states and the 2DEG focusing in particular on how the 2DEG properties are influenced
by AlGaN thickness and aluminium composition when donors
are present in the strucure [3], [4], [9][12]. Among these
Manuscript received October 4, 2013; revised October 23, 2013 and
October 31, 2013; accepted November 2, 2013. Date of current version
December 20, 2013. The review of this letter was arranged by Editor
J. A. del Alamo.
G. Longobardi and F. Udrea are with the Department of Engineering,
Cambridge University, Cambridge CB30FA, U.K. (e-mail: gl315@cam.ac.uk).
S. Sque, G. A. M. Hurkx, and J. Croon are with NXP Semiconductors,
Eindhoven 5656 AE, Netherlands.
E. Napoli is with the Department of Diplamo in Electronic Engineering,
University of Naples, Napoli 80125, Italy.

J. Sonsk
is with NXP Semiconductors, Leuven 06560, Belgium.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LED.2013.2290471

Fig. 1. (a) Cross-section of the MISFET as measured and simulated and

(b) charges along a vertical cutline in the device.

authors, Jogai defined a charge-control model for describing

the effect of donor traps on the 2DEG as a function of AlGaN
thickness [3], [4]. Goyal et al. [10], [11] described an analytical
model relating the 2DEG density and surface barrier height to
the donor state distribution and occupancy considering donors
as distributed states within the bandgap as described in [9].
In this letter, we investigate the role of donor traps located
at the passivation/top-layer interface using a single trap energy
level rather than continuously distributed states. With this
simple model, which is widely used in the literature [2][4],
[6], [7], [12], we are able to explain the experimental results.
We directly relate the variation of the 2DEG charge density
to the main trap parameters (concentration and energy level)
through TCAD simulations at zero bias. Furthermore, we
present the influence of these traps on the electrical behavior of
MISFET devices by analyzing the 2DEG for different applied
biases. This has been done by means of TCAD simulations
and measurements of the IdVg of AlGaN/GaN devices.
II. E XPERIMENT
Fig. 1(a) shows the structure of the MISFET as measured
and simulated. The device is grown on a silicon substrate and
consists, from the substrate to the top, of a superlattice layer,
a Ga-face GaN layer, an AlGaN layer, a GaN cap layer, and a
SiN passivation layer. The gate length is L G = 76 m in order
to allow for proper characterization of the region beneath the
gate electrode. Further details about the process technology
can be found in [13]. The pulsed measurements were performed with a pulse/period ratio equal to 200 s/100 ms. The
base of the pulse (i.e., the quiescent point) was VgQ = 0 V
with Vds = 0.1 V.
TCAD simulations were carried out using the finite element
software Synopsys Sentaurus Device. The charges present in
the simulated structure are schematically shown in Fig. 1(b).
The piezopolarization charges at the GaN/AlGaN interfaces
(pol1 ) were defined according to [1]. The effect of strain

0741-3106 2013 IEEE

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IEEE ELECTRON DEVICE LETTERS, VOL. 35, NO. 1, JANUARY 2014

Fig. 2. (a) Simulated sheet channel density at zero bias as a function of

donor concentration and energy levels. The boundaries between regions are
drawn for the case E 0 = 0.2 eV. (b) Conduction band minimum as function
of the distance d from the gate metal, donor concentration, and energy level
in Region 2 and Region 3.

relaxation on the piezoelectric charges as discussed in [11]

was not taken into account. This effect would not modify
the main message of this letter which is to relate the surface
donor occupancy with the observed MISFET characteristics.
The total amount of fixed charge at the SiN/GaN interface (2 )
was evaluated by taking into account the charges associated
with the passivation layer together with the piezopolarization
charge at this interface. At the same interface, donor states
were introduced (D ).
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
A. Zero-Bias TCAD Analysis
An initial study of the donors influence on the sheet
channel density at zero bias was performed. Fig. 2(a) shows
the sheet channel density n 2DEG as a function of donor
concentration and energy level. Here one can identify three
different regions wherein donors influence the 2DEG density
differently: Region 1, where the donor concentration is too
low and does not affect the 2DEG; Region 2, where the
sheet channel density increases proportionally with the donor
concentration and independently of the trap energy level E t ,
which is located E 0 eV below the conduction band edge E c ;
and Region 3, where the 2DEG density becomes independent
of the donor concentration but changes with the trap energy
level. The threshold value that defines the boundary between
regions 1 and 2 is determined by the negative charge at
the passivation/cap interface (2 ). As soon as that charge
is compensated by the positive ionized donors, any increase
in the donor concentration will contribute electrons to the
channel. This is valid up to an upper threshold that is the
beginning of Region 3 and that corresponds to the value of
donor concentration for which the Fermi level is pinned by the
trap states. Within Region 2 virtually all donors are ionized but
the resulting electric field in the AlGaN barrier region, which
decreases with increasing 2DEG density, is too high to bring
the conduction-band minimum at the surface sufficiently down.
As a result, in equilibrium, E t is well above the Fermi level
(see solid line in Fig. 2(b)). The values of donor concentration
within Region 2 are then too low to pin the Fermi level at the
trap level. By increasing the donor concentration the 2DEG
density increases too which reduces the electric field in the
barrier region until eventually E t approaches E F (see dashed
line in Fig. 2(b)). This is the Fermi-level-pinned regime, seen
as saturation in Region 3 where any further increase in donor
concentration will result in only a small variation of ionized
donors D+ without any significant change in the sheet channel

Fig. 3. (a) Simulated and measured DC and pulsed transfer characteristics;

(b) Total ionized donors and sheet channel density simulated in case of traps
free to change their occupancy with the gate bias applied.

density. If the difference in energy between the conduction

band edge and the trap level is increased, the saturation of the
sheet channel concentration will occur for lower values of D ,
as shown in Fig. 2(a). This is because E t is closer to E F and
fewer ionized donors are needed for pinning E F .
B. DC and Pulsed Measurements
In Fig. 3(a), DC simulations of the IdVg of the MISFET at
Vd = 100 mV are compared with DC measurements (black
lines). Fig. 3(b) shows the variation of the 2DEG density with
the gate bias together with the amount of ionized donors. One
can see that at Vg = 0 V the donor concentration corresponds
to Region 3 of Fig. 2, where only a certain fraction of traps are
ionized. By decreasing the gate voltage, the gap between E t
and the quasi-Fermi level for electrons increases only slightly,
leading to more donors becoming ionized but without moving
the conduction band edge in the channel. For Vg = Vkink
all donors are ionized (i.e. empty) and the quasi-Fermi level
is no longer pinned. For Vg < Vkink , the gate bias then
starts modulating the channel. The analogy between Fig. 3(a)
and Fig. 2 can be seen by following how the variation of
E t E F affects the conduction band edge in the channel.
In Fig. 2, E t E F is modified by the variation of donor
concentration; in Fig. 3(a), the concentration of traps is kept
constant but we modify that difference in energy by applying a
gate bias. In other words, both Vkink and the upper threshold
of Fig. 2 define the transition between the Fermi-level-notpinned region (i.e., Region 2 and Vg < Vkink ) and the Fermilevel-pinned region (i.e., Region 3 and Vg > Vkink ) with the
consequences on the channel as stated before.
To exclude the possibility that traps elsewhere in the device
(other than at the passivation/top-layer interface) are responsible for the electrical behavior, DC measurements were performed on an equivalent device without passivation beneath
the gate (i.e. the gate is a schottky contact). Fig. 3(a) shows
that no kink is present in the transfer characteristics of such
a device. Note that for Vg = 0.7 V the schottky contact starts
conducting. Fig. 4 clarifies the fitting procedure based on the

LONGOBARDI et al.: IMPACT OF DONOR TRAPS ON THE 2DEG AND ELECTRICAL BEHAVIOR

Fig. 4. Simulated transfer characteristics of the MISFET varying donor

concentration and energy level.

values of donor concentration and energy level. In particular,

one can see that for curves 1 and 2, the on-state resistance
(Vds /Id for Vg = 0 V) is not affected by the variation in n D
since within Region 3 the channel charge density for Vg = 0 V
(Fig. 2) is saturated with n D . However, the kink position and
threshold voltage Vth are shifted since they depend on the total
amount of ionized donors which increases with Vg . Curve 3
does not show any kink as all donors are already ionized at
zero bias and within the whole range of Vg considered (i.e. the
donor concentration falls within Region 2). Furthermore the
comparison between curves 1 and 4 highlights the dependence
of the n 2DEG at zero bias on the donor energy level. One can
also note that a more negative Vg is needed to completely
ionize the donors when the energy level is deeper in the
bandgap (E 0 = 0.6 eV; Curve 4).
Pulsed measurements were performed on an equivalent
device to measure the IdVg of MISFET during short width
pulses (200 s). Measurement results were then compared
with simulations where trap occupancies were frozen at
Vg = 0 V. This situation emulates the case of slow traps
(ideally frozen). This letter takes into account the extreme
conditions of the transient analysis: DC and very short
pulse measurements. By comparing the simulations with the
measurements in these two extreme situations one can see
that the trap dynamics are well reproduced in the simulations.
When traps are frozen at Vg = 0 V (Fig. 3(a)) the channel
density decreases with the gate bias over the whole Vg
sweep to fulfil charge neutrality. Moreover, the fact that the
donors are not free to become completely ionized results
in a lower n 2DEG at a given Vg , hence a less negative Vth .
This clearly indicates that donors are responsible for the
shift between the measured and simulated DC and pulsed
transfer characteristics and that these traps are significantly
slower than the pulse speed applied, such that they keep their
occupancy probability as it is at Vg = 0 V. Using a donor
concentration of 1.14 1013 cm2 with an energy level of
0.2 eV from the conduction band gave the best fit to the
measurements in terms of on-state resistance, Vth , and Vkink .
Donor states can be related to dangling bonds or
N-vacancies present at the surface of the GaN layer [8] or they
might be due to substitutional donor atoms such as oxygen [4].
They can then depend on different contaminants of the GaN
surface. For this reason their characterization led to a variety
of values for concentration and position in the bandgap. Some
of the energy levels reported in literature are 0.3 eV [14],
0.68 eV [15], and 1.0 eV [6]. A value of donor concentration
close to the one found in this letter (1.2 1013 cm2 ) can be
found in [16].

29

IV. C ONCLUSION
This work demonstrates the effect of the donor-like states
present at the passivation/top-layer interface on the 2DEG density of AlGaN/GaN transistors and the transfer characteristics
of AlGaN/GaN MISFETs. With this analysis of the trap occupancy, the pinning of the (quasi-)Fermi level by the trap energy
level has been related to the flattening of the IdVg transfer
characteristics of the MISFET. DC and pulsed measurements
with a quiescent point of Vg = 0 V and a short pulse width are
used to reproduce the occupancy of donor states. A concentration of 1.14 1013 cm2 with an energy level of 0.2 eV from
the conduction band gives the best fit to the measurements in
terms of on-state resistance, Vth , and Vkink . Using these values,
TCAD simulations also show good agreement with the pulsed
measurement results. By analyzing the transfer characteristic
of the MISFET we were able to characterize the surface traps
that correspond to those located at the surface in the drift
region of the equivalent HEMT.
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