Room temperature operation and DC characteristics of InAlN/GaN/AlGaN Hot Electron Transistors with common base transfer ratio, α = 0.97

Abstract

A Hot Electron Transistor (HET) works on the principle of injection of ‘hot’ electrons above a barrier into a thin transit region (base), where they travel with minimal scattering and are collected in the collector.1,2 It is thus possible to obtain near ballistic transport in these devices and hence larger current drive and operation at frequencies higher than conventional (diffusive transport) transistors. The other obvious advantage of this device especially over nitride based HBTs is in the enormous decrease of Rb (base resistance) possible relative to HBTs; 100Ω/□ in a unipolar HET compared to a few kΩ/□ in an HBT due to the difficulty in obtaining high hole concentrations combined with low hole mobility.