Solid-State Electronics 48 (2004) 851854 www.elsevier.

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Short Communication

Gateless AlGaN/GaN HEMT response to block co-polymers

B.S. Kang a, G. Louche b, R.S. Duran b, Y. Gnanou b, S.J. Pearton c, F. Ren a,*
a

Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, P.O. Box 116005, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA b Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA c Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida, FL 32611, USA Received 27 July 2003; received in revised form 14 September 2003; accepted 13 October 2003

Abstract Gateless AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures exhibit large changes in source-drain current upon exposing the gate region to various block co-polymer solutions. The polar nature of some of these polymer chains lead to a change of surface charges in gate region on the HEMT, producing a change in surface potential at the semiconductor/liquid interface. The nitride sensors appear to be promising for a wide range of chemical gas, combustion gas, liquid and strain sensing. 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction There is emerging interest in the use of GaN Schottky diodes as sensitive combustion gas sensors [113] and of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) for chemical sensing [3,6,8,12]. The high carrier density formed at the AlGaN/GaN interface by spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization makes this structure particularly sensitive to changes in surface strain or potential. In addition, the ability to integrate these sensors with HEMT electronics for wireless communication systems is attractive for many applications. Neuberger et al. have suggested that the sensing mechanism for chemical adsorbates originated from compensation of the polarization induced bound surface charge by interaction with the polar molecules in the liquids [2]. Steinho et al. [4] suggested that the native oxide on the nitride surface was responsible for the pH sensitivity of the response of gateless HEMTs to electrolyte solutions. The pH response of metal oxide sur-

faces has been modeled by a number of groups in terms of formation of hydroxyl groups that lead to a pH dependent net surface change with a resulting change in voltage drop at the semiconductor/liquid interface [14 17]. In this letter, we report on the changes in the source/ drain current in gateless AlGaN/GaN HEMT structures exposed to solutions of polyethylene oxide (PEO), polystyrene (PS) and block co-polymers of PEO and PS. Source/drain IV characteristics of monitored for 20 150 lm2 gate dimension gateless-devices, which were exposed to the polymers solution, relative to the value obtained for measurements in air.

2. Experimentals The epi structure and processing sequence have been described in detail previously [12]. In brief, the HEMT structure was grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition at 1040 C on c-plane Al2 O3 substrates. The layer structure consisted of a low temperature GaN nucleation layer, a 3 lm undoped GaN buer and a 30 nm Al0:3 Ga0:7 N undoped layer. The sheet carrier density in the channel was $8 1012 cm2 with a 300 K electron

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-352-392-4757; fax: +1-352392-9513. E-mail address: ren@che.u.edu (F. Ren).

0038-1101/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sse.2003.10.002

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B.S. Kang et al. / Solid-State Electronics 48 (2004) 851854

Fig. 2. Structure of block co-polymer, composed of dierent portions of PS and PEO (top) and chemical formula for PS and PEO (bottom). Fig. 1. Schematic layout of gate HEMT structure (top) and device cross-section (bottom).

mobility of 900 cm2 /V s. The ungated HEMT was fabricated using Cl2 /Ar inductively coupled plasma etching for mesa isolation and lift-o of e-beam deposited Ti/Al/ Pt/Au subsequently annealed at 850 C for 30 s to lower the Ohmic contact resistance. Silicon Nitride was used to encapsulate the source/drain regions, with only the gate region open to allow the polar liquids to reach across the surface. A schematic of the device is shown in Fig. 1 (top), plan view layout with a cross-sectional view at the bottom of Fig. 1. The source-drain current-voltage characteristics were measured at 25 C using an Agilent 4156C parameter analyzer with the gate region exposed either to air or various concentrations of the block co-polymers and individual polymers. The block copolymers are composed dierent proportions of the individual polymers, PS and PEO. The conguration and chemical symbols of the block co-polymer are illustrated in Fig. 2. The block co-polymers and individual polymers used in this work were dissolved in the benzyl alcohol.

piezoelectric polarization, which are balanced with positive charges on the surface. The induced sheet carrier concentration of undoped Ga-face AlGaN/GaN can be calculated by following equation [18]:   rx e0 ex ns x e/b x EF x DEc x 1 e dd e2

9 8 7 6

air PEO PS

IDS (mA)

5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 0 10 20 30 40

3. Results and discussion The charges in the two-dimensional (2D) channel of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are induced by spontaneous and

VDS (V)
Fig. 3. Drain IV characteristics for the air, solvent, PS and PEO (weight concentration of the polymers are CPEO 0:0387 mg/ml and CPS 0:3781 mg/ml).

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853

where e0 is the electric permittivity, ex 9:5 0:5x is the relative permittivity, x is the Al mole fraction of Alx Ga1 x N, dd is the AlGaN layer thickness, e/b is the Schottky barrier of the gate contact on AlGaN (e/b x 0:84 1:3xeV), EF is the Fermi level (EF x p 9he2 ns x=16e0 ex 8m x2=3 h2 ns x=4pm x), Ec is the conduction band (Eg x 6:13x 3:421 x x1 xeV), and DEc is the conduction band discontinuity between AlGN and GaN (DEc x 0:7Eg x Eg 0). Note that m x $ 0:228. Therefore the sheet charge density in the 2D channel of AlGaN/GaN HEMT is extremely sensitive to its ambient. The adsorption of polar molecules on the surface of GaN aects in the surface potential and device characteristics. As illustrated in Fig. 3, nitride HEMT exposed to different ambients and drain IV characteristics were af-

10 9 8 7 6

IDS (mA)

air solvent C4 C3 C2 C1

5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 0 10 20 30 40

(a)

VDS (V)
4.0

fected signicantly. At 40 V of drain bias voltage, drain current reduced for 25% and 50% for devices exposed to PE and PS solution, respectively. Due to large gate dimension (20 150 lm2 ) induced parasitic resistance, the drain current did not reach the saturation at 40. If the device dimension reduced, larger changes of drain current should be expected. The dipole moment of ethylene and styrene monomer are 1.89 and 0.62, respectively [19]. The dipole moment of ethylene monomer is three times larger than that of styrene monomer, however, the eect of PEO solutions on drain current of nitride HEMT is only half of the PS styrene. This could be due to PEO is extremely linear and dipole is along the polymer chain. The 20 150 lm2 gate opening is much larger than the individual monomer in the PEO chain. Therefore the dipole eect on the device is very locally within the big gate opening and some of the net surface charges induced by the PEO were cancelled out. In the case of PS, the polymer chain is very bulky and not very linear, the net dipole induce charge may be higher than that of PEO, therefore, larger drain current changes were observed. If the gate dimension reduces to the size of individual monomer, the complete opposite results may be obtained. The concentration of the block co-polymer also affected the changes of the drain current, as showed in Fig. 4. The molecular weight of the co-polymer is 58.8 kg/ mole and it contains 71% of PS and 29% PEO. The concentration of the co-polymer was varied from 1.0917 mg/ml to 0.08734 mg/ml. As the co-polymer concentration increased, the drain current reduced more. The current reduction verses the co-polymer concentration is not quite linear as showed in Fig. 4 (bottom), this could be due to the high parasitic resistance of the devices and

Current Change at 20V (mA)

9 8
3.5

7 6

air R5 R11

IDS (mA)
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2

3.0

5 4 3 2 1

2.5

2.0 0.0

0 -1 0 10 20 30 40

(b)

Concentration of R 11 (mg/mL)

Fig. 4. (a) Drain IV characteristics for the dierent concentration of PS PEO co-polymer (molecular weight: 58,800 g/ mol, 71% of PS and 29% PEO) and (b) concentration of the copolymer solutions are following C1 1:0917 mg/ml, C2 0:7612 mg/ml, C3 0:5504 mg/ml, C4 0:08734 mg/ml.

VDS (V)
Fig. 5. Drain IV characteristics of co-polymers with dierent composition (R5 : MW 66.6 kg/mol, 53% of PS and 47% of PEO and R11 : MW 58.8 kg/mol, 71% of PS and 29% of PEO).

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B.S. Kang et al. / Solid-State Electronics 48 (2004) 851854 [3] Schalwig J, Muller G, Ambacher O, Stutzmann M. Phys Status Solidi A 2001;185:39. [4] Steinho G, Hermann M, Scha WJ, Eastmann LF, Stutzmann M, Eickho M. Appl Phys Lett 2003;83:177. [5] Eickho M, Neuberger R, Steinho G, Ambacher O, Muller G, Stutzmann M. Phys Status Solidi B 2001;228:519. [6] Schalwig J, Muller G, Eickho M, Ambacher O, Statzmann M. Sens Actuators B 2002;81:425. [7] Stutzmann M, Steinho G, Eickho M, Ambacher O, Nobel CE, Schalwig J, et al. Diamond Relat Mater 2002;11:886. [8] Eickho M, Schalwig J, Steinho G, Neuberger R, Hermann M, Ambacher O, et al. Phys Status Solidi C 2003;6:1908. [9] Kim J, Gila B, Chung GY, Abernaty CR, Pearton SJ, Ren F. Solid State Electron 2003;47:1069. [10] Kim J, Ren F, Gila B, Abernaty CR, Pearton SJ. Appl Phys Lett 2003;82:739. [11] Kim J, Gila B, Abernaty CR, Chung GY, Ren F, Pearton SJ. Solid State Electron 2003;47:1487. [12] Mehandru R, Luo B, Kang BS, Kim J, Ren F, Pearton SJ, et al., Solid State Electron, in press. [13] Ambacher O, Eickho M, Link A, Hermann M, Stutzmann M, Tilak BV, et al. Phys Status Solidi C 2003;6:1878. [14] Yales DE, Levine S, Healy TW. J Chem Faraday Trans 1974;70:1807. [15] Siu WM, Collold RSC. IEEE Trans Electron Dev 1979;ED-26:1805. [16] Bousse L, DeRooij NF, Bergbeld P. IEEE Trans Electron Dev 1983;ED-30:1263. [17] Fung CD, Cheng PW, Ho WH. IEEE Trans Electron Dev 1986;ED-33:8. [18] Asbeck PM, Yu ET, Lau SS, Sullivan GJ, Van Hove J, Redwing JM. Electron Lett 1997;33:1230. [19] CRC handbook of chemistry and physics. 77th ed. New York: CRC press; 1997.

the saturation currents were not reached. Co-polymer with similar molecular weight, but dierent compositions also had signicant impact on the drain IV characteristics. As shown in Fig. 5, the co-polymer with large percentage of PS reduced more drain current, which was consistent with results in Fig. 3.

4. Summary Gateless AlGaN/GaN HEMTs show a strong dependence of source/drain current on the polarity and concentration of polymer solutions. This suggests the possibility of functionalizing the surface for application as biosensors, especially given the excellent stability of the GaN and AlGaN surfaces which should minimize degradation of adsorbed cells [8].

Acknowledgements The work at the University of Florida is partially supported by NSF (CTS-0301178, monitored by Dr. M. Burka and Dr. D. Senich), NASA (NAG 10-316 monitored by Dr. W. Knott) and DARPA/AROSR (monitored by Dr. H.C. Delong).

References
[1] Ambacher O, Eickho M, Steinho G, Hermann M, Gorgens L, Werss V, et al. Proc ECS 2002;214:27. [2] Neuberger R, Muller G, Ambacher O, Stutzmann M. Phys Status Solidi A 2001;185:85.