Tri-gate InGaAs-OI junctionless FETs with PE-ALD Al₂O₃ gate dielectric and H₂/Ar anneal

We present a tri-gate In0.53Ga0.47As-on-insulator (InGaAs-OI) junctionless field-effect transistor (JLFET) architecture. The fabricated devices feature a 20-nm-thick n-In0.53Ga0.47As channel doped to 1018/cm3 obtained by metal organic chemical vapor phase deposition and direct wafer bonding along with a 3.5-nm-thick Al2O3 gate dielectric deposited by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD). The PE-ALD Al2O3 presents a bandgap of 7.0 eV, a k-value of 8.1 and a breakdown field of 8-10.5 MV/cm. A post-fabrication H2/Ar anneal applied to the PE-ALD Al2O3/In0.53Ga0.47As-OI gate stack yielded a low density of interface traps (Dit) of 7 × 1011/cm2 eV at Ec - E = -0.1 eV along with lower border trap density values than recently reported PE-ALD bi-layer Al2O3/HfO2 and thermal ALD HfO2 gate stacks deposited on In0.53Ga0.47As. The H2/Ar anneal also improved the subthreshold performance of the tri-gate InGaAs-OI JLFETs. After H2/Ar anneal, the long-channel (10 μm) device featured a threshold voltage (VT) of 0.25 V, a subthreshold swing (SS) of 88 mV/dec and a drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL) of 65 mV/V, while the short-channel (160 nm) device exhibited a VT of 0.1 V, a SS of 127 mV/dec and a DIBL of 218 mV/V. Overall, the tri-gate InGaAs-OI JLFETs showed the best compromise in terms of VT, SS and DIBL compared to the other III-V JLFET architectures reported to date. However, a 15× increase in access resistance was observed after H2/Ar anneal, significantly degrading the maximum drain current of the tri-gate InGaAs-OI JLFETs.