Suppression of hot electron effect in AlGaN/GaN HEMT with multi-grooves barrier-etched structure

A multi-grooves barrier-etched structure between barrier layer and passivation layer is proposed in this paper to suppress the hot electron effect at the gate edge on the drain side in the p-GaN gate AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor. In the TCAD simulations, the groove structure induces extra electric field concentration region and AlGaN/SiN interface area, which can lower the high electric field peak and electron temperature in the channel at the gate edge, leading to the alleviated capture and release of hot electrons. The static I-V characteristic and dynamic switching performance and breakdown characteristic show that the multi-grooves barrier-etched structure improves the current collapse and switching time and breakdown voltage. Our work exhibits the great potential of multi-grooves barrier-etched structure on the stability and reliability of the AlGaN/GaN HEMT.