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6CCVD Research

Enhancement of drain soft-breakdown strength to 1.1 MV/cm for hydrogen-terminated diamond MOSFETs by mitigating hydrogen-induced defects

At a Glance

Section titled ā€œAt a Glanceā€
MetadataDetails
Publication Date2025-10-20
JournalApplied Physics Letters
AuthorsYongxin Duan, Nana Gao, Xinxin Yu, Shuman Mao, Yuechan Kong
InstitutionsUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Huzhou University

Abstract

Section titled ā€œAbstractā€

Diamond surface quality is critical to improve the power and reliability for the hydrogen-terminated diamond (H-diamond) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). In this Letter, significant surface microdefects were identified in the H-diamond after heat treatment at less than 500 Ā°C. These microdefects may be caused by thermal bubbling of free hydrogen introduced during the diamond hydrogenation process and are, therefore, referred to as hydrogen-induced defects in this paper. Based on the peak intensity of the grazing incidence x-ray diffraction spectra, the long-range ordering of the H-diamond surface lattice degrades with the heat treatment temperature. To explain the effect of these hydrogen-induced defects on the drain breakdown of H-diamond MOSFETs, a critical electric field model considering hydrogen bubbling effect is proposed. It indicates that mitigation of hydrogen-induced defects would improve the long-range ordering of H-diamond surface lattice and, thus, increase the H-diamond breakdown strength. Next, two kinds of Al2O3/H-diamond MOSFETs with the same device structure are fabricated by depositing Al2O3 at 150 and 450 Ā°C, respectively. It is verified that the H-diamond MOSFET with Al2O3 deposited at 150 Ā°C exhibits a drain soft-breakdown strength 4.75 times greater than that of the device with Al2O3 deposited at 450 Ā°C. By mitigating the hydrogen-induced defects in the H-diamond surface, a record drain soft-breakdown strength of 1.1 MV/cm is reached for the Al2O3/H-diamond MOSFET. These results would be helpful in improving the power and reliability of H-diamond devices.

Tech Support

Section titled ā€œTech Supportā€

Original Source

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References

Section titled ā€œReferencesā€
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  2. 2006 - Development of single-crystal CVD-diamond detectors for spectroscopy and timing [Crossref]
  3. 2001 - Thermal conductivity measurements on CVD diamond [Crossref]
  4. 2024 - Challenges and opportunities of sub-6 GHz integrated sensing and communications for 5G-advanced and beyond [Crossref]
  5. 2020 - Diamond semiconductor devices, state-of-the-art of material growth and device processing
  6. 2024 - Hydrogen-terminated diamond field-effect transistors with 1011 ON/OFF ratio using an Al2O3/HfO2 stacked passivation layer [Crossref]
  7. 2021 - A study of linearity of C-H diamond FETs for S-band power application [Crossref]
  8. 2018 - Characterization and modeling of hydrogen-terminated MOSFETs with single-crystal and polycrystalline diamond [Crossref]
  9. 2020 - Negative constant voltage stress-induced threshold voltage instability in hydrogen-terminated diamond MOSFETs with low-temperature deposited Al2O3 [Crossref]
  10. 2022 - Characterization of substrate-trap effects in hydrogen-terminated diamond metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors [Crossref]

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