Proton-irradiated InAlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors at 5, 10, and 15 MeV energies

Abstract

InAlN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) grown on SiC substrates were subjected to 5-15 MeV high energy protons with a fixed 5 x 10(15) cm(-2) fluence. The saturation currents and gate leakage currents of all the proton-irradiated InAlN/GaN HEMTs were degraded. Proton irradiation at lower energy was found to degrade the direct current (DC) current-voltage (I-V) characteristics more severely than higher-energy irradiation, because the energy loss component of the lower energy protons was larger than those of higher-energy protons in the vicinity of the 2-dimensional electron gas conducting channel. Our experimental results were consistent with stopping and range of ions in matter simulation results of the energy deposition profile by the protons. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3673906]