Title :
Performance and Breakdown Characteristics of Irradiated Vertical Power GaN P-i-N Diodes
Author :
King, M.P. ; Armstrong, A.M. ; Dickerson, J.R. ; Vizkelethy, G. ; Fleming, R.M. ; Campbell, J. ; Wampler, W.R. ; Kizilyalli, I.C. ; Bour, D.P. ; Aktas, O. ; Nie, H. ; Disney, D. ; Wierer, J. ; Allerman, A.A. ; Moseley, M.W. ; Leonard, F. ; Talin, A.A. ; K
Author_Institution :
Sandia Nat. Labs., Albuquerque, NM, USA
Abstract :
Electrical performance and defect characterization of vertical GaN P-i-N diodes before and after irradiation with 2.5 MeV protons and neutrons is investigated. Devices exhibit increase in specific on-resistance following irradiation with protons and neutrons, indicating displacement damage introduces defects into the p-GaN and n- drift regions of the device that impact on-state device performance. The breakdown voltage of these devices, initially above 1700 V, is observed to decrease only slightly for particle fluence <; 1013 cm-2. The unipolar figure of merit for power devices indicates that while the on-resistance and breakdown voltage degrade with irradiation, vertical GaN P-i-Ns remain superior to the performance of the best available, unirradiated silicon devices and on-par with unirradiated modern SiC-based power devices.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; gallium compounds; power semiconductor diodes; semiconductor device testing; silicon compounds; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN; SiC; breakdown voltage; displacement damage; irradiated vertical power P-i-N diodes; n-drift regions; on-state device performance; power devices; unirradiated silicon devices; Gallium nitride; Neutrons; P-i-n diodes; Performance evaluation; Power electronics; Protons; Radiation effects; Reliability; Wide band gap semiconductors; Displacement damage; gallium nitride; power devices; power electronics; reliability; wide-bandgap;
Journal_Title :
Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TNS.2015.2480071
