Elastocapillary Force Induced Alignment of Large Area Planar Nanowires.

Achieving large scale precise positioning of the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) nanowires is one of the biggest challenges for mass production of nanowire-based devices. Although there have been many noteworthy progresses in postgrowth nanowire alignment method development over the past few decades, these methods are mostly suitable for low density applications only. For high density applications such as transistors, both high yield and density are required. Here, we report an elastocapillary force-induced nanowire-aligning method that is extremely simple, clean, and can achieve single/multiple nanowire arrays with up to 98.8% yield and submicron pitch between the nanowires.

Transferrable AlGaN/GaN High-Electron Mobility Transistors to Arbitrary Substrates via a Two-Dimensional Boron Nitride Release Layer.

Mechanical transfer of high-performing thin-film devices onto arbitrary substrates represents an exciting opportunity to improve device performance, explore nontraditional manufacturing approaches, and paves the way for soft, conformal, and flexible electronics. Using a two-dimensional boron nitride release layer, we demonstrate the transfer of AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) to arbitrary substrates through both direct van der Waals bonding and with a polymer adhesive interlayer. No device degradation was observed because of the transfer process, and a significant reduction in device temperature (327-132 °C at 600 mW) was observed when directly bonded to a silicon carbide (SiC) wafer relative to the starting wafer. With the use of a benzocyclobutene (BCB) adhesion interlayer, devices were easily transferred and characterized on Kapton and ceramic films, representing an exciting opportunity for integration onto arbitrary substrates. Upon reduction of this polymer adhesive layer thickness, the AlGaN/GaN HEMTs transferred onto a BCB/SiC substrate resulted in comparable peak temperatures during operation at powers as high as 600 mW to the as-grown wafer, revealing that by optimizing interlayer characteristics such as thickness and thermal conductivity, transferrable devices on polymer layers can still improve performance outputs.

High Aspect Ratio ß-Ga2O3 Fin Arrays with Low-Interface Charge Density by Inverse Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching.

ß-Ga2O3, with a bandgap of ∼4.6-4.9 eV and readily available bulk substrates, has attracted tremendous interest in the wide bandgap semiconductor community. Producing high aspect ratio ß-Ga2O3 3D nanostructures without surface damage is crucial for next-generation power electronics. However, most wet etching methods can only achieve very limited aspect ratios, while dry etch usually damages the surface due to high energy ions. In this work, we demonstrate the formation of ß-Ga2O3 fin arrays on a (010) ß-Ga2O3 substrate by metal-assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) with high aspect ratio and sidewall surfaces with excellent quality. The etching was found to be strongly crystal orientation dependent, and three kinds of vertical structures were formed after MacEtch. The Schottky barrier height (SBH) between Pt and various MacEtch-produced ß-Ga2O3 surfaces and sidewalls was found to decrease as the aspect ratio of the ß-Ga2O3 vertical structure increased. This could be attributed to the different amount of oxygen lost at the surface after etching, as indicated by the XPS and TEM examination. Very little hysteresis was observed in the capacitance-voltage characteristics for the 3D Pt/Al2O3/ß-Ga2O3 MOS capacitor structures, and the extracted interface trap density was as small as 2.73 × 1011 cm-2 eV-1, comparable to or lower than that for unetched planar ß-Ga2O3 surfaces.

In situ transmission electron microscopy of transistor operation and failure.

Microscopy is typically used as a post-mortem analytical tool in performance and reliability studies on nanoscale materials and devices. In this study, we demonstrate real time microscopy of the operation and failure of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors inside the transmission electron microscope. Loading until failure was performed on the electron transparent transistors to visualize the failure mechanisms caused by self-heating. At lower drain voltages, thermo-mechanical stresses induce irreversible microstructural deformation, mostly along the AlGaN/GaN interface, to initiate the damage process. At higher biasing, the self-heating deteriorates the gate and catastrophic failure takes place through metal/semiconductor inter-diffusion and/or buffer layer breakdown. This study indicates that the current trend of recreating the events, from damage nucleation to catastrophic failure, can be replaced by in situ microscopy for a quick and accurate account of the failure mechanisms.

Flexible Gallium Nitride for High-Performance, Strainable Radio-Frequency Devices.

Flexible gallium nitride (GaN) thin films can enable future strainable and conformal devices for transmission of radio-frequency (RF) signals over large distances for more efficient wireless communication. For the first time, strainable high-frequency RF GaN devices are demonstrated, whose exceptional performance is enabled by epitaxial growth on 2D boron nitride for chemical-free transfer to a soft, flexible substrate. The AlGaN/GaN heterostructures transferred to flexible substrates are uniaxially strained up to 0.85% and reveal near state-of-the-art values for electrical performance, with electron mobility exceeding 2000 cm2 V-1 s-1 and sheet carrier density above 1.07 × 1013 cm-2 . The influence of strain on the RF performance of flexible GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) devices is evaluated, demonstrating cutoff frequencies and maximum oscillation frequencies greater than 42 and 74 GHz, respectively, at up to 0.43% strain, representing a significant advancement toward conformal, highly integrated electronic materials for RF applications.

Incomplete Ionization of a 110 meV Unintentional Donor in ß-Ga2O3 and its Effect on Power Devices.

Understanding the origin of unintentional doping in Ga2O3 is key to increasing breakdown voltages of Ga2O3 based power devices. Therefore, transport and capacitance spectroscopy studies have been performed to better understand the origin of unintentional doping in Ga2O3. Previously unobserved unintentional donors in commercially available [Formula: see text] Ga2O3 substrates have been electrically characterized via temperature dependent Hall effect measurements up to 1000 K and found to have a donor energy of 110 meV. The existence of the unintentional donor is confirmed by temperature dependent admittance spectroscopy, with an activation energy of 131 meV determined via that technique, in agreement with Hall effect measurements. With the concentration of this donor determined to be in the mid to high 1016 cm-3 range, elimination of this donor from the drift layer of Ga2O3 power electronics devices will be key to pushing the limits of device performance. Indeed, analytical assessment of the specific on-resistance (Ronsp) and breakdown voltage of Schottky diodes containing the 110 meV donor indicates that incomplete ionization increases Ronsp and decreases breakdown voltage as compared to Ga2O3 Schottky diodes containing only the shallow donor. The reduced performance due to incomplete ionization occurs in addition to the usual tradeoff between Ronsp and breakdown voltage.

High-Speed Planar GaAs Nanowire Arrays with fmax > 75 GHz by Wafer-Scale Bottom-up Growth.

Wafer-scale defect-free planar III-V nanowire (NW) arrays with ∼100% yield and precisely defined positions are realized via a patterned vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth method. Long and uniform planar GaAs NWs were assembled in perfectly parallel arrays to form double-channel T-gated NW array-based high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with DC and RF performance surpassing those for all field-effect transistors (FETs) with VLS NWs, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), or graphene channels in-plane with the substrate. For a planar GaAs NW array-based HEMT with 150 nm gate length and 2 V drain bias, the on/off ratio (ION/IOFF), cutoff frequency (fT), and maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) are 10(4), 33, and 75 GHz, respectively. By characterizing more than 100 devices on a 1.5 × 1.5 cm(2) chip, we prove chip-level electrical uniformity of the planar NW array-based HEMTs and verify the feasibility of using this bottom-up planar NW technology for post-Si large-scale nanoelectronics.