Normally-off AlGaN/AlN/GaN HEMT with a composite recessed gate

Abstract

As we all know, the normally-off HEMT is very important to the safety of power electronic systems. To increase the threshold voltage of the device, this article proposes to cover Al₂O₃ on the recessed P-GaN to form the recessed p-GaN HEMT covered with Al₂O₃. Through simulation calculation, covering Al₂O₃ on P-GaN can effectively increase the threshold voltage, but the saturation current and transconductance will be severely reduced. Therefore, this article optimizes the structure and proposes a composite recessed-gate HEMT for the first time. It can obtain high saturation current and high transconductance while maintaining a high threshold voltage. Compared with the recessed p-GaN HEMT covered with Al₂O₃, the transconductance and saturation current of the composite recessed-gate HEMT are increased by 13.14% and 121.33%, respectively, while the threshold voltage is only reduced by 4.44% (4.3 V). In addition, the gate dielectric has a greater impact on device performance. Therefore, this paper analyzes the influence of the thickness of the Al₂O₃ layer on the device through theoretical calculations and obtains the optimal value of the thickness. (T1 = 18.3 nm, Vth = 4.5 V, Isat = 456 mA/mm). The results show that the composite recessed gate has broad application prospects in the next generation of normally-off power device applications.