IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 60, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2013

3157

Gate Leakage Mechanisms in AlGaN/GaN and

AlInN/GaN HEMTs: Comparison and Modeling
Sreenidhi Turuvekere, Naveen Karumuri, A. Azizur Rahman, Arnab Bhattacharya, Senior Member, IEEE,
Amitava DasGupta, Member, IEEE, and Nandita DasGupta, Member, IEEE

Abstract The gate leakage mechanisms in AlInN/GaN and

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are
compared using temperature-dependent gate currentvoltage
(IG VG ) characteristics. The reverse bias gate current of
AlInN/GaN HEMTs is decomposed into three distinct components, which are thermionic emission (TE), PooleFrenkel (PF)
emission, and FowlerNordheim (FN) tunneling. The electric
field across the barrier in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs is not sufficient
to support FN tunneling. Hence, only TE and PF emission
is observed in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. In both sets of devices,
however, an additional trap-assisted tunneling component of
current is observed at low reverse bias. A model to describe
the experimental IG VG characteristics is proposed and the
procedure to extract the associated parameters is described. The
model follows the experimental gate leakage current closely over
a wide range of bias and temperature for both AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMTs.
Index Terms AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor
(HEMT), AlInN/GaN HEMT, gate leakage current, leakage
current modeling, parameter extraction.

I. I NTRODUCTION

lGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs)

have been widely studied over the last two decades and
several breakthrough performances have been demonstrated.
Current gain cut-off frequency (fT ) as high as >100 GHz
and output power density close to 10 W/mm have already
been demonstrated with the basic device structure [1][2].
Power density >30 W/mm and fT >200 GHz have also
been achieved with special device structures [3][4]. Strong
spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization in this system has
given an additional degree of freedom while designing these
devices. Two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) concentration
>1013 cm2 has been achieved with the proper choice of Al
mole fraction and thickness of the barrier layer.
Despite the excellent performance of these devices, the
built-in strain in the barrier layer because of lattice mismatch
Manuscript received March 15, 2013; accepted July 2, 2013. Date of
publication July 24, 2013; date of current version September 18, 2013.
This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology,
Government of India. The review of this paper was arranged by Editor
T. Palacios.
S. Turuvekere, N. Karumuri, A. DasGupta, and N. DasGupta are
with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India. (e-mail: sreenidhi.t@gmail.com;
naveen.karumuri@gmail.com; adg@ee.iitm.ac.in; nand@ee.iitm.ac.in).
A. A. Rahman and A. Bhattacharya are with the Department of Condensed
Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
Mumbai 400005, India (e-mail: rahmantifr@gmail.com; arnab@tifr.res.in).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TED.2013.2272700

and the additional strain during the operation of the device

due to the inverse piezoelectric nature of AlGaN is a matter
of concern while assessing the reliability of the device. It has
been shown that high reverse gate voltage results in permanent
structural breakdown [5]. Use of lattice matched barrier layer
improves the reliability of the device as it is free from
initial stress. Lattice matched Al0.83 In0.17 N (cited as AlInN
hereafter) has emerged as a strain-free barrier layer on GaN
and has offered several other advantages over AlGaN barrier
layer [6]. Even in the absence of piezoelectric polarization,
its higher spontaneous polarization coefficient gives rise to
higher 2DEG concentration than that for AlGaN barriers with
normally used Al mole fractions. Also because of the lower
free surface potential of AlInN, the barrier layer can be made
thinner without compromising 2DEG concentration. This has
enabled sub-100 nm gate lengths without invoking shortchannel effects. Its chemical and thermal stability is wellestablished [7]. HEMT devices with gate lengths of 30 nm
have exhibited fT as high as 250300 GHz and microwave
power >10 W/mm in X-band has been achieved with 0.25 m
gate length device [8][10].
While III-nitride system enjoys several attractive physical
properties, gate leakage is one of the major problems plaguing
these devices [11][16]. The 2DEG in the channel of an
HEMT device is normally controlled by the gate Schottky
diode. Because HEMT devices on these materials are normally
on devices with high 2DEG concentration, large negative bias
is necessary to turn off the device. Thus the gate leakage
becomes significant in deciding the standby power dissipation
and the reliability of the device. The observed reverse leakage
current in AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN HEMTs are much
larger than that predicted by thermionic emission (TE). A wide
range of bias and temperature dependence of gate leakage has
been studied and reported for AlGaN/GaN HEMTs to explain
the gate leakage mechanism [11][13]. PooleFrenkel (PF)
emission has been said to be the dominant leakage mechanism for the gate current conduction at higher temperature
[11], [12], while FowlerNordheim (FN) tunneling is also
observed at very low temperatures [11]. At large reverse
bias, impact ionization at lower temperature, hopping conduction along the surface at moderate temperature and
temperature-assisted tunneling at higher temperatures have
been reported [13]. In case of AlInN/GaN HEMT, thinner
barrier and higher electric field across the barrier results in
carrier tunneling through the barrier, leading to larger gate
leakage current. The very few reports available on the gate
leakage mechanisms for AlInN/GaN HEMTs are restricted

0018-9383 2013 IEEE

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013

either to a small bias and/or temperature range [14][16].

In these studies, PF emission in the reverse bias [14], [15]
and tunneling current via dislocations in the forward bias [16]
have been reported. However, the gate encounters a large
reverse bias during the normal operation of the device and
understanding the leakage current mechanism over a wide
range of gate bias is necessary. To the best of our knowledge,
there are no reports on the study of gate leakage mechanisms in
AlInN/GaN HEMT for a wide range of bias and temperature.
In this paper, for the first time, we study and compare the gate
leakage mechanisms in AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN HEMTs
over a wide range of bias and temperature, propose a model to
describe the gate currentvoltage (IG VG ) characteristics, and
explain the procedure to extract the associated parameters.
In Section II, the process steps for fabrication of
AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN HEMT and the device characterization techniques are described. Temperature dependence
of experimental IG VG characteristics of AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN are presented and compared in Section III. In
Section IV, the model to describe the experimental IG VG
characteristics is proposed and the procedure to extract the
associated model parameters is explained. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in Section V.

Fig. 1. Gate current densityvoltage characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMT

measured at different temperatures. Inset: the reverse current on linear scale
to illustrate current saturation below threshold voltage.

carried out at different temperatures from 223 to 473 K using

Cascade Microtech Summit 12000 AP thermal chuck probe
station. The gate current was measured at the gate terminal
while setting VDS = 0.

II. E XPERIMENT
The HEMT structures used in this paper are grown on
c-plane sapphire substrates. The layer structure for
AlGaN/GaN HEMT includes GaN buffer layer of 1-m
thickness, AlN spacer layer of 1-nm, and AlGaN barrier layer
of 24-nm thickness with Al mole fraction of 26%. The layer
structure for AlInN/GaN HEMT includes GaN buffer layer of
2-m thickness, AlN spacer layer of 1-nm, AlInN barrier
layer of 10-nm thickness with Al mole fraction of 83% and
Si-doped GaN capping layer of 2-nm thickness.
The samples were first degreased in organic solvents.
Following this, mesa etching was carried out in BCl3 /Cl2
inductively coupled plasma with photoresist as mask. The
mesa etch depth was 300 nm on both the samples. After
mesa etching, the resist mask was stripped and the samples
were immersed in ammonium sulfide solution with excess
sulfur [(NH4 )2 SX , 40% sulfur]. This not only removes the
native oxide but also passivates the surface and avoids the
formation of oxide. After this step, photoresist was coated
and windows were opened for ohmic contacts. Before loading
the samples into the metallization chamber, the samples were
immersed in HCl: H2 O (1:1) to remove any native oxide.
Ti/Al/Au (30 nm/150 nm/50 nm) was then evaporated and
lifted-off. The contact activation annealing was carried out
in a conventional furnace at 550 C for 5 min in nitrogen
ambient. Finally, Schottky contacts were patterned, Ni/Au
(20/75 nm) was evaporated and lifted-off. The devices were
not passivated. The gate length, source-to-gate spacing, and
source-to-drain spacing are 4, 10 and 30 m, respectively.
IV characterization was carried out on dark using Agilents
B1500A semiconductor device analyzer. CapacitanceVoltage
(CV ) characterization was carried out on large area Schottky
diodes fabricated on the same die. The measurements were

III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION

In this section, the models for different components of
current are presented. The models are validated using the
extracted values of individual current components. The procedure to obtain each of the current components from the raw
data is described in detail in Section IV.
A. Analysis of Gate IV Characteristics of AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMTs
1) AlGaN/GaN HEMT: The gate current density
(J)voltage (V ) characteristics of AlGaN/GaN HEMT
at different temperatures are shown in Fig. 1. A significant
increase in reverse current with increase in temperature is
observed. Also, the reverse current increases with the increase
in the reverse bias (in region I) and saturates beyond threshold
voltage (VG < 4 V, in region II), which is seen clearly on
the linear scale shown in the inset of Fig. 1. In the lower
forward bias region, a small increase in the gate current is
observed with increase in temperature and the curves for
different temperature merge at higher forward bias.
a) Thermionic emission current: To analyze the gate
current mechanism, forward bias is considered first. Considering TE as dominant phenomenon in this bias range, the
J V characteristics of a Schottky contact is described by the
expression [17]




qV
1
(1)
JTE = J0 exp
kT
where



qb
J0 = A T exp
kT

TURUVEKERE et al.: GATE LEAKAGE MECHANISMS IN AlGaN/GaN AND AlInN/GaN HEMTs

Fig. 2. Variation of barrier height ( and ) and ideality factor ( and ) with
temperature obtained from the forward IG VG characteristics of AlGaN/GaN
(solid symbols) and AlInN/GaN (open symbols) HEMT. Inset: typical plots
of ln(J ) versus V for AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN HEMTs.

J0 being the reverse saturation current density, A the effective

Richardsons constant, T the absolute temperature, q the
electron charge, b the Schottky barrier height, the ideality
factor, and k the Boltzmanns constant. A typical plot of ln(J )
versus V is shown in the inset of Fig. 2. It can be seen from
the figure that ln(J ) versus V is a straight line as predicted
by (1) signifying J JTE in this region of operation.
The parameters, J0 (and hence b ), and can be extracted
from the intercept and slope of the ln(JTE ) versus V for
V > 3 kT, respectively. The extraction procedure is described
in detail in Section IV. The extracted values of b and for
different temperatures are plotted in Fig. 2. It is seen from
the figure that b increases monotonically with increase in
temperature, while does not show a monotonic behavior with
temperature.
b) PooleFrenkel emission current: The reverse leakage
current of these devices are significantly higher than that
predicted by TE. To understand the reverse leakage mechanism, PF emission is considered as has been reported earlier
[11], [12]. The current density (JPF )electric field (E) dependence of PF emission is given by [18]
 


q t (q E/i )
(2)
JPF = C Eexp
kT
where C is a constant, t is the barrier height for the electron
emission from the trap state and i is the permittivity of
the semiconductor at high frequency. Equation (2) can be
rearranged as

ln (JPF /E) = m(T ) E + c(T )

where

q
q
m(T ) =
kT i
qt
+ ln(C).
c(T ) =
kT

(3)

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Fig. 3. Plot of electric field as a function of gate voltage for AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMT. Inset: the typical CV and nS versus VG characteristics
for AlGaN/GaN HEMT.

The electric field across the barrier is calculated using the

expression [12]
E=

q(b n s )

(4)

where b is the bound charge at the hetero-interface, which is

the sum of the piezoelectric polarization charge in the barrier
and the difference between spontaneous polarization charge in
the barrier and the buffer, n s is the 2DEG concentration at the
hetero-interface and is the permittivity of the barrier.
To calculate the electric field using (4), it is essential to
know the value of b and 2DEG concentration as a function
of gate voltage. The value of b used for calculating the
electric field is 1.44 1013 cm2 [19]. CV profiling is
one of the techniques used to extract n s as a function of
gate voltage [12]. In this paper, the 2DEG concentration is
obtained by integrating the CV characteristics of a large area
Schottky diode fabricated on the same die. A plot of electric
field as a function of gate voltage is shown in Fig. 3. Inset of
Fig. 3 shows the measured CV characteristics and n S versus
VG characteristics for AlGaN/GaN HEMT. The electric field
across the barrier saturates below threshold voltage when n s
becomes negligible with respect to b . At zero gate bias, the
value of n s is smaller than that of b and hence, the electric
field across the barrier is nonzero. The importance of this is
discussed later in this section.

Equation (3) suggests that the plot of ln(JPF /E) versus E

should yield a straight line if the leakage current is because
of PF emission. Further, the plot of the y-intercepts (c(T )) as
a function of q/kT should yield another straight line whose
slope
gives the value of t . The plot of ln( JPF /E) versus

E for different temperatures is shown in Fig. 4. The plot

of c(T ) versus q/kT is shown as inset. The data points fit well
with straight lines for both the plots indicating PF emission.
The value of t extracted from the slope of the plot c(T )
versus q/kT is 0.17 eV, which is slightly lower than the values
reported in the literature [11].

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Fig. 4. PF emission plot for the Reg I of the IG VG characteristics of

AlGaN/GaN HEMT. Inset: the plot of c(T ) versus q/kT .

c) Trap-Assisted tunneling current: The electric field

across the barrier does not go to zero at zero gate bias, as
mentioned earlier. This predicts a nonzero current at zero
gate bias because of electric field dependence of PF emission
current, which is not possible. Yan et al. [12] have proposed
that forward defect-assisted tunneling current flows from gate
to the channel to compensate for the PF emission current
flowing from the channel to the gate near zero bias. Further,
it is shown that this defect-assisted tunneling current has the
same temperature dependence as that of PF emission current.
In this paper, this additional current component, represented
as JTAT , is modeled with an exponential function which takes
the expression similar to that of TE current. The expression
for JTAT is given by




q(V V0 )
JTAT = J02 exp
1
(5)
2 kT
where J02 , V0 , and 2 are the parameters used to fit the
experimental characteristics near zero bias. A typical plot of
ln( JTAT ) versus (V V0 ) is shown in Fig. 5. It is seen from the
figure that the data points fit well on a straight line validating
the use of (5).
d) AlInN/GaN HEMT: The gate J V characteristics
of AlInN/GaN HEMT at different temperatures are shown
in Fig. 6. The forward characteristics resemble that of
AlGaN/GaN HEMT. However, a significant difference is
observed in the reverse bias region. Apart from the strong
temperature-dependent lower reverse bias region (Reg I) and
saturation region at higher reverse bias beyond threshold
voltage (Reg III), a weak temperature-dependent and strong
bias-dependent region in the moderate reverse bias (Reg II) is
observed.
The behavior in the forward bias region and the Reg I of
the reverse bias is similar to that of AlGaN/GaN HEMT. It
is found that the experimental data fit well with the characteristics predicted by TE in the forward bias and the PF
emission in the Reg I of the reverse bias region. Fig. 2 shows
the extracted values of b and for AlInN/GaN HEMTs at
different temperatures. The behavior of both b and are

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013

Fig. 5.
Typical ln(JTAT ) versus (VG V0 ) plots for AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMTs.

Fig. 6. Gate current densityvoltage characteristics of AlInN/GaN HEMT

measured at different temperatures.

similar to that of AlGaN/GaN case. Fig. 7 shows the PF

emission curves for different temperatures. The electric field
is calculated using (4) with b = 2.8 1013 cm2 [19]. The
plot of the y- intercept as a function of temperature is shown
as inset in Fig. 7. It can be seen clearly that all the curves fit
well on a straight line indicating PF emission in Reg I. The
value of t extracted from the slope of the plot c(T ) versus
q/kT is 0.54 eV, which is higher than the value reported in the
literature [14].
To analyze the gate current in Reg II of the reverse bias,
FN tunneling is assumed because of strong electric field
dependence and weak temperature dependence in this region.
The JFN E dependence of FN tunneling is given by [18]


B
2
(6)
JFN = AE exp
E
with

8 2m n (qeff )3
B=
3qh

where A is a constant, m n is the conduction-band effective

mass in semiconductor, h is the Plancks constant, and eff is

TURUVEKERE et al.: GATE LEAKAGE MECHANISMS IN AlGaN/GaN AND AlInN/GaN HEMTs

Fig. 7. PF emission plot for Reg I of the IG VG characteristics of AlInN/GaN

HEMT. Inset: the plot of c(T ) versus q/kT .

Fig. 8.
FN tunneling plots for Reg II of the IG VG characteristics of
AlInN/GaN HEMT.

the effective barrier height. Rearranging (6), we get



ln JFN /E 2 = ln(A) B/E

(7)

which indicates that the plot of ln( JFN /E 2 ) versus 1/E yields
a straight line. Fig. 8 shows that it is indeed a straight line
and the value of the effective barrier height extracted from
the slope is 2.3 eV using the effective mass of electron in
AlInN as 0.4m e , where m e is the free electron mass. The
extracted values of barrier height varied slightly (12%) with
temperature.
Apart from these three current components (TE, PF, and FN)
for AlInN/GaN devices, at low reverse bias, a defect-assisted
tunneling current has also been considered as discussed in the
case of AlGaN/GaN devices.
B. Comparison of Gate JV Characteristics of AlGaN/GaN
and AlInN/GaN HEMTs
To compare the J V characteristics, the reverse bias
region is considered first. As discussed in the previous

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section, the current in the lower bias region for AlGaN/GaN

HEMTs increases with increase in field because of PF
emission, and in the higher bias region, the current saturates
because of saturation of electric field beyond the threshold
voltage. However, for AlInN/GaN HEMTs, it is seen that the
reverse bias characteristics has an intermediate region where
the current increases with increase in bias because of FN
tunneling. Conduction band (CB) edge diagrams, obtained
from Sentaurus device simulator [20] as shown in Fig. 9, are
used to explain this behavior in AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN
HEMTs. Fig. 9(a) shows CB edges of AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMTs at thermal equilibrium. Fig. 9(b) and (c)
represents the cases at low reverse bias and at a voltage close
to the threshold voltage, respectively. As seen Figs. 3 and 9(a)
the electric field across the AlInN barrier is higher than that
across the AlGaN barrier. A continuum of states is believed
to be present in these materials, which originates from the
conductive dislocations in the barrier layer. This is shown
as a band of states marked in gray and labeled as E dis in
Fig. 9(a) and (b). Assuming the trap states are very close to
the metal Fermi level, the continuum of states is at a height
equal to t from the metal Fermi level [11], [15].
In the lower reverse bias region, the current conduction in
both AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN is dictated by PF emission.
The PF emission mechanism corresponds to the activation of
carriers from a trap state to the continuum of states because
of thermal energy. The barrier for the emission of electron
from trap state to continuum of states decreases with increase
in electric field similar to that of Schottky barrier lowering.
The extracted values of zero field barrier height for electron
emission, t , for AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN are 0.17 eV
and 0.54 eV, respectively.
As the gate voltage is increased further, the electric field
across the barrier increases. At a critical electric field, when
the barrier width at the metal Fermi level becomes < 5 nm,
the electrons at the metal Fermi level tunnel through the
AlInN barrier as shown in Fig. 9(c), and the FN tunneling current starts to dominate. The value of eff extracted
from the slope of FN plot in Fig. 8 is 2.3 eV. The critical
electric field required for FN tunneling to dominate can be
estimated as E critical = eff /5 nm. The value of E critical for
AlInN/GaN device is 4.6 MV/cm which is reached at a gate
voltage 4.5 V as seen in Fig. 3. This is also validated
from Fig. 6, where we observe that FN component indeed
starts to dominate around the same gate voltage. This region
of operation is found only in case of AlInN/GaN HEMT
and not in AlGaN/GaN HEMT because the electric field
across the barrier in AlGaN is not sufficiently large. Assuming
eff = 1.4 eV for AlGaN/GaN HEMT, E critical = 2.8 MV/cm.
As seen in Fig. 3, in case of AlGaN/GaN HEMT, the electric
field saturates before it reaches the critical field, primarily
because of the lower value of b . Thus FN tunneling current is
insignificant.
At a given temperature, the AlInN/GaN HEMT has higher
gate leakage current compared to the AlGaN/GaN device.
This is because the higher spontaneous polarization charge in
the AlInN/GaN system results in greater electric field, which
in turn results in the increased PF emission component and

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013

leakage current mechanism in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. The PF

emission component has strong temperature dependence and
only at very low temperatures the FN tunneling component
may be observed because of the reduced PF emission component [11]. On the other hand, FN tunneling will be the
dominant component of current in AlInN/GaN HEMTs at
large reverse bias voltages near the threshold voltage. This
is true irrespective of the thickness of the barrier layer. It
has been reported that for a higher barrier thickness of AlInN
(20 nm) than in our experiment, only PF emission component
is significant even at larger reverse bias of 5 V [14]. This is
because a thicker AlInN layer results in a higher threshold
voltage and n s is significantly large even at VG = 5 V,
resulting in lower electric field. Thus, FN component will be
dominant only at larger reverse bias when the thickness of the
barrier layer is increased.
In the forward bias region, both AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMTs show similar behavior. As shown in
Fig. 2, the extracted barrier heights increase with increase in
temperature. However, the values of b are much smaller than
that predicted by TE model. This reduction in b may be
attributed to the presence of a tunneling current via dislocations [16]. As the temperature is increased, the TE component
increases resulting in increase in the extracted b . However,
even at 473 K, the extracted value of b is much less than
expected, indicating that tunneling current is still dominant
at this temperature. The ideality factor when tunneling is the
dominant phenomenon is given by [16]


E 00
E 00
(8)
coth
=
kT
kT
where E 00 is the characteristic tunneling energy, which
should be a temperature-independent parameter. Thus should
decrease monotonically with increase in temperature and then
saturate at unity. However, in our case first decreases with
increase in temperature as expected but again starts to increase
for T >373 K as shown in Fig. 2. It is suggested that increase
in temperature >373 K activates more traps/defects which
modifies the value of E 00 . This is possibly the reason for
the increase in in both AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN devices
for T > 373 K. Also, this increased activation of traps at
higher temperature can modify the value of eff resulting in
a mild temperature dependence of JFN seen in the Reg II of
J V characteristics of AlInN/GaN devices in Fig. 6. While the
extracted ideality factor shown in Fig. 2 has increased at 423 K
and 473 K, the current in the FN plots at these temperatures
are slightly higher than the rest as seen in Fig. 8.
IV. M ODEL F ORMULATION AND
PARAMETER E XTRACTION
Fig. 9.
Simulated conduction band edge diagram of AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMT at (a) equilibrium, (b) small gate voltage (Reg I), and
(c) gate voltage near threshold.

also the dominance of the FN tunneling component at higher

reverse bias.
It can also be concluded that because of the lower electric
field, PF emission component is expected to be the dominant

A. Model Formulation
The gate leakage current in AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN
HEMTs can be modeled as a voltage and temperaturedependent current source I in series with a resistance R, where
I = Area (JTE + JPF + JFN + JTAT )

(9)

where, JTE is the TE current density, JPF is the PF emission

current density, JFN is the FN tunneling current density,

TURUVEKERE et al.: GATE LEAKAGE MECHANISMS IN AlGaN/GaN AND AlInN/GaN HEMTs

3163

and JTAT is the trap-assisted tunneling current density. The

expressions for JTE , JPF , JTAT , and JFN are given by (1), (2),
(5), and (6), respectively.
Fig. 10(a) and (b) compares the model with experimental data at 473 K for AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN HEMT,
respectively. Various components of the diode currents are also
shown for reference. It can be seen that the model follows
the experimental data points closely over the entire region
of operation for AlGaN/GaN HEMT. For AlInN/GaN HEMT,
there is a slight deviation in the region close to and below
threshold voltage (6 V). This discrepancy is observed for all
temperatures and the predicted current is always lower than the
experimental current. The possible reason for underestimation
of current could be as follows. The electrons tunneling from
metal to GaN have large kinetic energy. These electrons,
while losing kinetic energy, could generate electronhole pairs,
which results in higher current than that predicted by FN
tunneling. This effect is accounted for in device simulators
such as Sentautus with the help of a multiplication factor
greater than unity [20].
The I V characteristics at 473 K is shown in Fig. 10 for
the sake of clarity. Excellent agreement between the model
and experimental points has also been obtained at all other
temperatures.
B. Parameter Extraction
The parameters associated with the proposed model include
those of the TE ( J0 and ), PF emission (c and m), FN tunneling ( A and B) and trap-assisted tunneling (V0 , J02 , and 2 )
components of current as well as the value of resistor R. The
procedure to extract these parameters is described below. The
parameters for a particular current component are extracted in
the region where it is dominant.
1) TE Current Parameters: As shown in Fig. 10, the TE
current is the dominant component in the lower forward bias
region. In this region, when the applied bias is higher than
3 kT, (1) can be rearranged as
qV
.
(10)
ln(J ) = ln(J0 ) +
nkT
A plot of ln( J ) versus V yields a straight line. The intercept
of the straight line gives the value of J0 , and can be extracted
from the slope of the straight line.
2) PF Emission Current Parameters: It is seen from Fig. 10
that the PF emission current is dominant at lower reverse bias
region. In this region of operation, JPF can be approximated as
the difference between the measured current density ( J ) and
the TE component (JTE ), which is calculated by substituting
the extracted parameters in (1). JPF is now used to obtain the
PF plot for the lower reverse bias region (shown in Figs. 4
and 7). As evident from (3), the parameters c and m are the
intercepts and slopes of these plots, respectively.
3) FN Tunneling Current Parameters: The FN tunneling
current component may be dominant in the higher revese bias
region close to the threshold voltage. In this region, JFN can
be approximated as JFN = J JTE JPF . The extracted TE
and PF emission parameters are substituted in (1) and (3) to
obtain JTE and JPF , respectively. JFN is now used to obtain

Fig. 10. I V characteristics of (a) AlGaN/GaN and (b) AlInN/GaN HEMT

comparing the model with the experiment. Various current components in the
model are shown for reference.

the FN plot (shown in Fig. 8). The parameters A and B are

obtained from the intercepts and slopes of the straight line fits
respectively as seen from (7). In AlGaN/GaN HEMT, JFN is
very small signifying negligible FN tunneling.
4) Trap-Assisted Tunneling Current Component Parameters:
In the reverse bias region close to the origin, the current
component JTAT becomes significant. This current component
can be expressed as JTAT = J JTE JPF JFN . This
current is represented by (5). The value of V0 is the voltage
at which the sum of JTE , JPF , and JFN starts to deviate from
the experimental curve. The value of 2 is extracted from the
slope of ln(J TAT ) versus (V V0 ) (shown in Fig. 5) using a
similar procedure described previously for the TE current. The
value of J02 is calculated by equating JTAT to the sum of JPF
and JFN at zero gate bias.
5) Series Resistance: In the forward bias region, the current
has to increase exponentially with applied voltage. However,
the current on the semilogarithmic I V characteristic plot
deviates from the straight line at larger forward bias because
of the additional voltage drop across R. To extract its value,
the current in the lower forward bias region is extrapolated

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013

towards higher current. The voltage difference between the

experimental curve and the extrapolated curve for a given
current is the voltage drop across R. The ratio of this voltage
to the current at which the voltage difference is measured gives
the value of R.
V. C ONCLUSION
The IG VG characteristics of AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN
HEMTs are analyzed and possible mechanisms for gate leakage current are proposed. The gate leakage current mechanisms in AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN HEMTs are compared
using conduction band edge diagrams. While TE and PF
emission are observed in AlGaN/GaN HEMT, an additional
FN tunneling component exists in AlInN/GaN HEMT. Trapassisted tunneling current component is also observed in both
the set of devices. While higher value of b in AlInN/GaN
system makes it an attractive alternative to AlGaN/GaN, the
same is also responsible for higher gate leakage current.
A model to describe the gate I V behavior of AlGaN/GaN
and AlInN/GaN HEMT is proposed and validated. Procedure
to extract the associated model parameters is described. The
model follows the experimental characteristics closely for a
wide range of bias and temperature for AlGaN/GaN and
AlInN/GaN HEMTs. Although the results presented in this
paper are for devices with 4 m gate length, similar results
have been obtained for devices with gate lengths varying from
2.5 to 40 m, as gate current density is used for analysis. The
proposed model can be, in general, used for any III-nitridebased HEMT.
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Sreenidhi Turuvekere is currently pursuing the

Ph.D. degree in GaN-based HEMT devices with
the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai,
India.
His current research interests include fabrication
and characterization of wide band-gap semiconductor devices for RF and power electronics applications.

Naveen Karumuri has been pursuing the Ph.D.

degree with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai,
India, since 2010.
His current research interests include modeling and characterization of GaN-based electronic
devices.

A. Azizur Rahman received the M.Sc. degree in

energy science from Madurai Kamaraj University,
Madurai, India.
He is a Scientific Staff Member with the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials
Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
Mumbai, India.

TURUVEKERE et al.: GATE LEAKAGE MECHANISMS IN AlGaN/GaN AND AlInN/GaN HEMTs

Arnab Bhattacharya (M94SM06) received the

Ph.D. degree from the University of WisconsinMadison, Madison, WI, USA.
He is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science,
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai,
India.

Amitava DasGupta (S85M88) received the

Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology
(IIT) Kharagpur, India, in 1988.
He has been a Faculty Member in the Department
of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, since 1993
and is currently a Professor.

3165

Nandita DasGupta (M08) received the Ph.D.

degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Madras, Chennai, India, in 1988.
She has been a Faculty Member with the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, since
1993 and is currently a Professor.