Due to their large critical electric field and high electron mobility, gallium nitride (GaN) based devices emerge as credible candidates for power electronic applications. In order to face the large market needs and benefit from available silicon manufacturing facilities, the current trend is to fabricate those devices, such as aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN)/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), directly on (111) silicon substrates. However, this pursuit of economic sustainability negatively affects device performances mainly because of self-heating effect inherent to silicon substrate use. New substrates with better thermal properties than silicon are desirable to improve thermal dissipation and enlarge the operating range at high performance.
A Ph.D. student in the lab. has developed a method to replace the original silicon material with copper, starting from AlGaN/GaN HEMTs fabricated on silicon substrates. He has demonstrated the interest of the postponement of a GaN power HEMT on a copper metal base with respect to self heating without degrading the voltage resistance of the component. But there are still many points to study to improve the power components.
Post-doc objectives : We propose to understand what is the best integration to eliminate self-heating and increase the voltage resistance of the initial AlGaN/GaN HEMT. The impact of the component transfer on the quality of the 2D gas will be analyzed.
The same approach can be made if necessary on RF components.
Different stacks will be made by the post-doc and he will be in charge of the electrical and thermal characterizations. Understanding the role of each part of the structure will be critical in choosing the final stack.
This process will also be brought in larger dimensions.
This post-doc will work if necessary in collaboration with different thesis students on power components.