Material and Device Engineering of Ga2O3 RF Electronics
Abstract
The ultrawide-bandgap Ga2O3 semiconductor shows promise as the next leap in high-power radio-frequency (RF) electronics. Despite intensive pursuit of Ga2O3 RF transistors in recent years, ample research opportunities remain in both materials and devices to improve key performance metrics. This project aims at developing Ga2O3 hot-electron transistors (HETs) that harness nonequilibrium transport effects through heterojunction engineering to reduce carrier transit delay (Fig. 1). During device operation, electrons are injected over a large emitter barrier into a base transit region where they travel at a very high velocity toward a collector barrier that filters low-energy electrons. Designing the base with a thickness less than the hot-electron mean free path [1] serves to minimize scattering events and thus enable quasi-ballistic operation. These novel devices can theoretically exhibit superior high-frequency performance and will allow the first studies into the benefits of quasi-ballistic transport on the speed of Ga2O3 transistors. At the same time, the Ga2O3 HET is an effective spectroscopy tool for obtaining an in-depth understanding of hot-electron phenomena and ballistic transport physics that underlie device operation. Our project team consisting of UML (PI Wong) and NCKU (PI Li), together with collaborators at AFRL (Dr. Shin Mou, Dr. Tadj Asel), accomplished several deliverables in Year 1 of the performance period. The outcomes of this research promise next-generation Ga2O3 RF devices with significantly higher frequency and power-handling capacity than the current state-of-the-art.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 23, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1204562
Entities
People
- Jian Li
- Man H. Wong
Organizations
- University of Massachusetts