Student Paper

MODELLING 2DEG CHARGES IN AlGaN/GaN

HETEROSTRUCTURES
Giorgia Longobardi*, Florin Udrea*, Stephen Sque**, Jeroen Croon**, Fred Hurkx**,
Ettore Napoli***, Jan onsk**,
*Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, U.K.
E-mail: gl315@cam.ac.uk
**NXP Semiconductors, High Tech Campus 32, 5656 AE Eindhoven, The Netherlands
***DIBET ,University of Naples Federico II, Naples, 80125, Italy

AbstractIn this paper we compare different

approaches to calculating the charge density in the
2DEG layer of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs. The methods
used are (i) analytical theory implemented in
MATLAB, (ii) finite-element analysis using
semiconductor TCAD software that implements only
the Poisson and continuity equations, and (iii) 1D
software that solves the Poisson and Schrdinger
equations self-consistently. By using the 1D PoissonSchrdinger solver, we highlight the consequences of
neglecting the Schrdinger equation. We conclude
that the TCAD simulator predicts with a reasonable
level of accuracy the electron density in the 2DEG
layer for both a conventional HEMT structure and
one featuring an extra GaN cap layer. In addition,
while the sheet charge density is not significantly
affected by including Schrdinger, its confinement in
the channel is found to be modified.

1. INTRODUCTION
Gallium nitride (GaN) is one of the most
exciting materials for future generations of
power devices. The high electron mobility
(~2000 cm2V1s1) of carriers confined in the
channel, together with the high field strength
(~3.5106 V/cm) and the very high electron
channel density (~1013 cm2) [1] without any
intentional doping makes AlGaN/GaN-based
devices a very serious competitor, overtaking
both silicon and silicon carbide in performance
(below 1-kV ratings). Understanding the basis of
its physics and choosing the right approach and
models when building a TCAD system is
fundamental for a proper analysis of GaN-based
devices. This paper explores the material and
geometrical parameters and physical models and
phenomena that influence the channel density of
AlGaN/GaN highelectron-mobility transistors
(HEMTs). An important characteristic of group
III-V semiconductor compounds is the
polarisation-induced charge present at the
interface between the different materials. Due to

this charge, which is positive in the case of Gaface layers, electrons are attracted to and then
confined within the so-called two-dimensional
electron gas (2DEG). In this work, the values of
both polarisation charge and sheet channel
density are evaluated. No bias is applied at any
electrode in this study. Section 2 gives details of
the HEMT and the methods used to calculate the
channel density. Section 3 presents the results of
these methods. Firstly, the system of equations
reported by Ambacher et al. [2,3] were
implemented in MATLAB. Secondly, TCAD
software (from Synopsis) was used to calculate
the sheet channel density as a function of mole
fraction and layer thicknesses. Finally, the
channel density was evaluated using a 1D
Schrdinger solver [4]. In Section 4, the
conclusions of this work are given.

2. DEVICE CROSS-SECTION AND

SOFTWARE USED
The cross-section of the HEMT simulated in
this work is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Cross-section of the simulated structure: (a) without

cap layer and (b) with cap layer.

Standard HEMTs feature a GaN bulk layer on

top of which an AlGaN layer is grown to create
the heterostructure. Moreover, it has been shown
that an additional GaN cap layer on top of the
AlGaN/GaN heterostructure increases the
Schottky barrier height (from eb to ebeff as

978-1-4673-0738-3/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

363

by simulating the HEMTs of Fig. 1 with the

Sentaurus TCAD software (from Synopsis). The
input deck was modified to incorporate the
piezoelectric polarisation effect by adding fixed
interface charges, as shown in Fig. 1. In order to
verify the accuracy of the simulation results from
Sentaurus (which solves only the Poisson and
continuity equations), the Schrdinger equation
was taken into account by using a 1D PoissonSchrdinger solver called Snider [3].
No doping was considered in the simulated
structures.

shown in Fig. 2) and thickness, leading to a

reduction in the gate leakage current [5, 6]. For
this reason, both structures without (Fig. 1(a))
and with (Fig. 1(b)) the cap layer were
considered in the analysis. The work function
used for the Schottky gate contact is WF =
5.1 eV, resulting in a barrier height of eb =
0.84 eV for the GaN top layer and 1.07 eV for
the AlGaN top layer with x = 0.18 as the
aluminium mole fraction. The GaN bulk layer is
1.5 m thick. The AlGaN and cap layer
thicknesses were varied to evaluate their
influence on the charge density of the 2DEG. A
0.1-m SiN passivation layer between source,
gate, and drain contacts was added at the top of
the structure. The charges 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in
Fig. 1 are fixed charges originating from the
differences in the total polarisation between
layers of different materials. These charges are
evaluated according to the work of Ambacher et
al. [2, 3] and are given by:

1st = PTot (GaN ) PTot ( Al x Ga 1 x N )

2nd = PTot ( Al x Ga 1 x N )
3rd = PTot (GaN )

(1)
(2)
(3)

Fig. 2. Schematic conduction band diagram for the structure

without (a) and with cap layer (b).

where x is the aluminium mole fraction of the

AlGaN layer and PTot stands for total
polarisation, given by the sum of the
spontaneous and piezoelectric polarisations.
The resulting sheet electron density ns, forming
the 2DEG at the interface of the AlGaN/GaN
heterostructure, is given by the following
function of aluminium mole fraction x:

3. SIMULATION RESULTS
2.1. Modelling according to the theory

( x)d GaN
ns ( x) = 1 +

(0)d AlGaN

( x)
[e b ( x) + ECF ( x) EC ( x)]
1st 0
2
e d AlGaNe

(4)

Figure 3 shows the absolute value of the total

polarisation charge in (1) as a function of x
(continuous line). For a mole fraction of 0.18, we
found 1st 1013 cm2. Figure 3 also indicates that
the value of the charge drops by almost 40% if
the piezoelectric polarisation is neglected (dashed
line).

where dGaN and dAlGaN are the GaN and AlGaN

layer thickness, respectively, eb is the Schottky
barrier height, EC is the conduction band offset
at the AlGaN/GaN interface, and EC-F is the
penetration of the conduction band edge below
the Fermi level at the interface (Fig. 2).
Equations (1) to (4) were first implemented in
MATLAB to evaluate the influence of the alloy
composition and AlGaN thickness on the sheet
charge density. Due to the dependence of EC-F on
ns(x), Newtons iterative method is used to solve
Eqn. (4). The channel density was then evaluated

Fig. 3. Total (continuous line) and only spontaneous

(dashed line) polarisation charge as a function of alloy
composition.

364

2.2. Modelling Using TCAD Software

An analysis of the carrier distribution profile
has been performed using Sentaurus. First, the
structure without cap layer was simulated and
then the influence of the top layer was included
in the analysis.
All simulations were performed at zero bias
conditions. The 2DEG density was evaluated by
extrapolating the value of the channel
concentration under the gate. The change of it
along the source-gate and gate-drain distance
was not considered at this stage. The variation of
the sheet channel density (ns) with x is plotted in
Fig. 4 for AlGaN thicknesses of 10 nm, 20 nm,
and 30 nm (daeshed lines). These curves were
then compared with those obtained from the
theory (continuous lines) of Section 3.1.

5.281012 cm2 in Sentaurus and ns =

5.541013 cm2 in MATLAB, showing a good
agreement between the two approaches.
The introduction of the cap layer influences
the solution of the Poisson equation across the
heterostructure mainly by increasing the Schottky
barrier height (Fig. 2). As a result the channel
concentration decreases with increasing thickness
of the cap layer. Figure 5 summarises the results
for several cap layer thicknesses.

2.3. Modelling Using 1D

Schrdinger Solver
Self-consistent solutions of the Schrdinger
and Poisson equations are here compared with the
previous results. Figure 6 shows the conduction
band, Fermi energy level, and 2DEG
concentration for the structure with a cap layer of
5 nm and Al0.18Ga0.82N of 22 nm.

Fig. 4. Sheet channel density as a function of alloy

composition according to theory [2] (continuous lines)
and TCAD (dashed lines) for dAlGaN equal to 10 nm, 20 nm,
and 30 nm for the structure without cap layer.

Fig. 6. 2DEG concentration and conduction band energy for

a structure with 5 nm cap layer and x = 0.18, without (top)
and with (bottom) solving the Schrdinger equation.
Fig. 5. Sheet channel density for dAlGaN = 22 nm and cap
layer thicknesses of 5 nm, 7 nm, 9 nm, and 12 nm.

Considering dAlGaN = 22 nm and x = 0.18, we

obtained a channel concentration ns =

It is interesting to note that the

obtained by solving the Schrdinger
(Fig. 6 bottom) gives a peak
concentration that is almost half of that

365

solution
equation
electron
obtained

without considering quantum effects. However,

the sheet channel density is only slightly lower
(6.271012 cm2
with
Schrdinger
and
6.351012 cm2 without). This is due to a
different carrier distribution profile in the two
cases. The peak of channel concentration (cm3)
moves slightly away from the interface into the
bulk of the GaN and the whole profile is wider
when Schrdinger is activated. The same trend
was also found for the structure without the cap
layer. A complete summary of the values of
2DEG density determined using the different
approaches is given in Table 1.

Table 1. Sheet channel density (ns) as evaluated from

theory, Sentaurus, and Snider without and with cap layer.
ns (no cap layer)
cm2

ns (with cap)
cm2

Theory (MATLAB)

7.161012

5.831012

TCAD
(Sentaurus)

7.211012

5.921012

Snider
(no Schrdinger)

7.201012

6.351012

Snider
(with Schrdinger)

7.121012

6.271012

The overall difference between the values of

sheet channel concentration obtained in
Sentaurus, Snider, and from the theoretical
approximation was not found to be significant.
The difference between Snider and other
approaches estimated for the device with cap
layer was attributed to a nonlinear dependence
[7] of the electrical properties on x in Snider.
Further analysis needs to be done to consider the
influence of the carrier confinement on the
mobility and on-state performance of the device..

4. CONCLUSIONS
The sheet channel density of AlGaN/GaN
heterostructures was evaluated as a function of
aluminium mole fraction and layer thicknesses.
Both structures with and without an extra GaN
cap layer were analysed using analytical
equations implemented in MATLAB, Sentaurus
TCAD, and a 1D Schrdinger solver.
The stress-induced charge is an essential
component of the overall polarisation
charge and cannot be ignored when
computing the sheet channel density.

The two-dimensional Poisson solver

(Sentaurus) is able to predict the electron
density in the 2DEG layer with a
reasonable level of accuracy.
While the sheet charge density is not
significantly modified by including
quantum effects (i.e., the Schrdinger
equation), its position relative to the
AlGaN/GaN interface and the peak
concentration are different. This could
influence the electron mobility in the
2DEG layer.
While a 5-nm top GaN cap layer can be
added to a HEMT to significantly reduce
the leakage through the Schottky gate, this
leads to a reduction in the 2DEG channel
density. Using a non-linear interpolation
of the electrical properties of GaN and
AlN for the AlGaN layer (as opposed to a
linear interpolation used in theory and
Sentaurus), the Snider results predict a
smaller relative reduction (11.8%) in the
2DEG channel density compared to the
other methods (17.9%) when the cap layer
is added.

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[7]

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