Experimental Demonstration of III-Nitride Hot-Electron Transistor With GaN Base

Abstract

In this letter, we demonstrate for the first time a III-nitride hot-electron transistor using an AlGaN (24%) emitter, 10-nm GaN base, and an AlGaN (8%) collector. Individual isotype heterojunctions were characterized by <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex Notation="TeX">$I$</tex></formula> – <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex Notation="TeX">$V$</tex></formula> measurements. For the device biased in a common base configuration, a common base transfer ratio of 0.97–0.98 was measured. The hot-electron distribution was obtained by plotting the differential of the collector current with respect to the applied base-collector voltage and demonstrated a Maxwellian shape suggesting near-ballistic transport through the 10-nm base.