Temperature dependent DC characteristics of an InP/InGaAs/InGaAsP HBT

Author

Abid, Z. ; McAlister, S.P. ; McKinnon, W.R. ; Guzzo, E.E.

Author_Institution

Inst. for Microstructural Sci., Nat. Res. Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ont., Canada

Volume

15

Issue

5

fYear

1994

fDate

5/1/1994 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

178

Lastpage

180

Abstract

We report the DC characteristics of n-p-n InP/InGaAs/InGaAsP HBT´s which have a composite-collector structure designed to improve the breakdown and gain. The devices exhibit common-emitter current gain of greater than 8 for over 9 orders of magnitude of collector current and breakdown voltages greater than 10 V. The DC gain for a typical device decreases from 40 at room temperature to 8 at 90 K. Over the same temperature range the collector-current ideality factor increases from 1.04 to 1.46, and the base current ideality factor is 0.05 to 0.1 larger than these values. We suggest that the high collector-current ideality factor and the lower gain at the lower temperatures is due to the increasing importance of tunneling of current across the emitter-base junction. The devices with the InGaAs/InGaAsP composite-collector structure offer better common-base turn-on behavior than those with InGaAs/InP as the collector structure, without the breakdown behavior being compromised.<>

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; electric breakdown of solids; gallium arsenide; gallium compounds; heterojunction bipolar transistors; indium compounds; tunnelling; 10 V; DC gain; HBT; InP-InGaAs-InGaAsP; base current ideality factor; breakdown voltages; collector-current ideality factor; common-base turn-on behavior; common-emitter current gain; composite-collector structure; emitter-base junction; n-p-n device; temperature dependent DC characteristics; tunneling; Composite materials; Doping; Electric breakdown; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Indium gallium arsenide; Indium phosphide; Photonic band gap; Temperature dependence; Temperature distribution; Zinc;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/55.291594

Filename

291594