Displacement Damage Correlation of Heavy Ion, Proton, and Electron Irradiation in GaAs MESFETs

Abstract

In this article, we mainly report the radiation response of n-channel depletion-mode gallium arsenide (GaAs) metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) under heavy ion, proton, and electron irradiation. The maximum transconductance ( ${G} _{\text {MAX}}$ ) and drain saturation current ( ${I} _{\text {DSS}}$ ), which can reflect the carrier removal and mobility degradation induced by displacement damage, are selected as evaluation indicators, and two kinds of damage factors are derived: ${K} _{G}$ and ${K} _{I}$ . The nonionizing energy loss (NIEL) of different particles deposited in the epitaxial channel layer of GaAs MESFETs is calculated and used to correlate ${K} _{G}$ and ${K} _{I}$ , respectively. The good linear relationship between damage factors and NIEL makes it possible to predict the degradation of ${G} _{\text {MAX}}$ and ${I} _{\text {DSS}}$ . On this basis, two semiempirical damage equations describing GaAs MESFETs displacement damage are derived and verified by 27-MeV F. We also derive the damage coefficient “ $\gamma $ ” in the more general damage equation, which has a value of $5.5\times 10^{-13}$ g/MeV for ${G} _{\text {MAX}}$ and $8.9\times 10^{-13}$ g/MeV for ${I} _{\text {DSS}}$ . Besides, MESFETs made from other materials may also align with the damage equation. A single irradiation experiment can determine the damage coefficient $\gamma $ values in principle. This work extends the application of the NIEL-based displacement damage dose (DDD) method in GaAs MESFETs.