Large-Area Lateral AlGaN/GaN-on-Si Field-Effect Rectifier With Low Turn-On Voltage

Abstract

In this letter, we report a large-area lateral AlGaN/GaN-on-Si power rectifier as diode with low turn-on voltage. The lateral field-effect rectifier (LFER) is based on a normally-off HEMT in reverse conduction with very low threshold-voltage and shorted gate-source terminal. A p-GaN gate module was used to realize the normally-off HEMT. The large-area LFER achieves a turn-on voltage of down to 0.2 V, a specific on-resistance of 10.8 mQ × cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> , a maximum current of above 9 A with a gate width of 87 mm, and a leakage current of 57 μA/mm at a blocking voltage of 500 V. Test structures exhibit a breakdown voltage of 676 V. The effect of different depletion zone lengths, temperature influences and distribution on the turn-on voltage are investigated. Finally, this work shows that this approach of a p-GaN LFER has a great potential for rectifiers for next-generation power electronics.