Diagnostics of defects in AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transitor (HEMT) epi-layers via spectroscopic photo current-voltage (IV) measurements with variable-wavelength ultraviolet (UV) and visible light excitation.

The reliability and performance of the nitride high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) have been plagued by deleterious phenomena such as current collapse which is believed to be produced by electrically-active deep-level defects (or traps) that reside at the surface/interfaces and in the bulk of the AlGaN/GaN HEMT layers. Therefore, identification of their physical/spectral locations and understanding the nature of defects is very important to improve the reliability of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. In this work, deep-level defects and traps located in the AlGaN/GaN HEMT epi-layers were investigated by using spectroscopic photo IV measurements. An array of Schottky contacts was constructed on the HEMT layer produced by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). The photo IV measurement was performed by collecting the photo current generated by the variable-wavelength UV/visible light illumination. It was successfully demonstrated that this technique can provide the information on the distribution of electrically-active defects along the in-depth direction and across the HEMT wafers. Therefore, it can be concluded that the spectroscopic measurements can be useful to assess the uniformity of defect distribution both along the in-depth direction and across the AlGaN/GaN wafers.