Publications

Performance and Breakdown Characteristics of Irradiated Vertical Power GaN P-i-N Diodes

King, M.P.; Armstrong, Andrew A.; Dickerson, Jeramy R.; Vizkelethy, Gyorgy V.; Fleming, Robert M.; Campbell, Jonathan C.; Wampler, W.R.; Kizilyalli, I.C.; Bour, D.P.; Aktas, O.; Nie, H.; DIsney, D.; Wierer, J.; Allerman, A.A.; Moseley, M.W.; Leonard, F.; Talin, A.A.; Kaplar, Robert K.

Electrical performance and defect characterization of vertical GaN P-i-N diodes before and after irradiation with 2.5 MeV protons and neutrons is investigated. Devices exhibit increase in specific on-resistance following irradiation with protons and neutrons, indicating displacement damage introduces defects into the p-GaN and n- drift regions of the device that impact on-state device performance. The breakdown voltage of these devices, initially above 1700 V, is observed to decrease only slightly for particle fluence < {10{13}} hbox{cm}-2. The unipolar figure of merit for power devices indicates that while the on-resistance and breakdown voltage degrade with irradiation, vertical GaN P-i-Ns remain superior to the performance of the best available, unirradiated silicon devices and on-par with unirradiated modern SiC-based power devices.