GATE CURRENT IN SELF-ALIGNED N-CHANNEL AND P-CHANNEL PSEUDOMORPHIC HETEROSTRUCTURE FIELD-EFFECT TRANSISTORS

We report the results of the study of the gate leakage current in n-channel and p-channel self-aligned pseudomorphic HIGFET's. We demonstrate that in these devices the gate leakage current is practically independent of the gate length. This means that the gate current primarily flows into the source and drain contacts through small sections of the channel near the contacts. At large gate voltages, the gate current is limited by the band discontinuities at the heterointerface, similar to the gate current in non-self-aligned heterostructure field-effect transistors.