Temperature dependence

time in P-type GaAs

of minority-carrier

mobility

and recombination

K. Beyzavi,a) K. Lee,b) D. M. Kim, and M. I. Nathan

Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minne,qota 5.5455

K. Wrenner and S. L. Wright

IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, P, 0. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598

(Received 20 August 1990; accepted for publication 24 December 1990)

The electron mobility in P-type GaAs, ,u$ has been determined as a function of temperature
by measuring the common-emitter cutoff frequency, fr, of an AlGaAs/GaAs n-p-n
heterojunction bipolar transistor. The base was 0.6 pm thick and it was doped with 4x lOI
cme3 Be. The 300 K value of 1055 cm2/V s and 79 K value of 5000 cm2/V s for ,u$
are comparable to the previously measured values. The discrepancy with .:he calculated
values is pointed out. The recombination lifetime is also measured as a function of
temperature for minority carriers. The results agree reasonably well with the calculated
radiative recominbation time.
Although minority-carrier
mobility is an important
factor in the performance of bipolar devices such as bipolar
junction transistors and solar cells, little work has been
done in measuring this parameter in III-V compound semiconductors. It has often been assumed that the value of
mobility for minority carriers in GaAs is the same as that
for majority carriers. Walukiewicz et al. pointed out that
there are significant differences in the magnitudes of the
minority- and majority-carrier mobilities, as well as in their
behavior, as the temperature is lowered.
In this letter, we report the experimental results for the
behavior of minority-carrier mobility as a function of temperature. We also report on the dependence of recombination lifetime on temperature.
The minority-carrier mobility p$ was measured using
the heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technique described earlier.2 The common-emitter cutoff frequency, fr,
was measured for an n-p-n AlGaAs/GaAs
HBT with a
uniformly doped, thick base. fT, the frequency at which the
common-emitter current gain of the transistor drops to
unity, can be shown to be3

f7= 1/(2n
=e-[

D,=

(3)

(kT/q)&.

The other terms normally found in the expression for fT,

namely, the base-collector junction transit time and the
collector charging time, become relatively unimportant if
the base is thick enough, in which case, the last term in Eq.
( 1) becomes dominant. ?-B is obtained by plotting l/fr
versus the reciprocal of the collector current, l/Z,. The
base of the transistor was 0.6 pm thick. It was doped with
Be, and the hole concentration was 4~ IO* cm - 3. The
Al,.,Ga,,,As emitter was 120 nm thick plus two graded
regions of 30 nm each. The emitter was doped with Si at
5 X 10 cm - 3. The collector was 400 nm thick and doped
with Si at 2X lOI cm- 3. In order to reduce the effect of
surface recombination in the base, which reduces the gain
of the device, polyimide was used in a self aligned surface
passivation process. The emitter area was 30x 30 pm. The
remainder of the structure was the same as that used earlier.2
The sample was probed using a cascade-Microtech
high-frequency probe placed in a low-temperature probe
station, and biased using an HP 4145 parameter analyzer.

TEC)

(kT/ql,)

(C, -I- cc -I- cp, I + 7-B)- l

(1)

40

and
0

7-fj=L;/3/(2Dn) ,

(2)

where TEC is the transit time of electrons from the emitter

to the collector, Z, is the collector current, C, and C, are
the base-emitter and base-collector junction capacitances,
C, is the parasitic capacitance, 7n is the base transit time,
L, is the base thickness and f), is the diffusion constant for
electrons. The other symbols have their usual meaning. D,
is related to p$ by the Einstein relation:

El

30
El
El

cl.
3

20
3
El
10

:
0

Present address: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University,

b,Princeton, NJ 08544.
Present address: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, P. 0. Box
150, Cheongryang, Seoul 130-650, Korea,
1268

Appl. Phys. Lett. 58 (12), 25 March 1991

i
200

100

I
300

-UK)
FIG. 1. Gain vs temperat .xe.

0003-6951 /$I /121268-03$02.00

@ 1991 American Institute of Physics

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6oool
5000

4000

ru
2.E

3000

0.0
5.

2000

1000

0ooo1000010

0010

0 IO

1 .oo

Frequency (GHz)

/0

(4)

p = r/rEC,

where r, is the recombination time. We will see below that

~~~ is independent of temperature, but radiative recombination is more efficient at low temperatures, hence r, is
reduced implying a lower gain. Figure 2 shows the gain
versus frequency with 1, as a parameter, from which the
values of fr are obtained.
Plots of l/f, vs l/1, for three different temperatures
are almost identical as can be seen in Fig. 3. 7B is found to
be 73 ps at 300 K and 66 ps at 87 K from extrapolation of
the linear portion of Fig. 3 to l/1, = 0.
The value of the electron mobility is plotted as a function of temperature in Fig. 4. It is important to note that
only the temperature of the chuck, and not that of the
sample, was monitored. The difference is considered to be
negligible at higher temperature. However, this difference
is corrected for all the other temperatures, which implies

1.2

I
El

n
c

II (300K)
0 (87K)
n

0.2

u
0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

(159K)

0.6

0.7

i/l, (1lmA)
FIG. 3. Inverse cutoff frequency vs inverse collector current for three
different values of temperature.
1269

Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 58, No. 12, 25 March 1991

200

300

Temperature T (K)

FIG. 2. Common-emitter current gain of the device vs frequency at 300 K

with collector current as a parameter.

The measurement was done using an HP 8753 network

analyzer to which the probes were connected by coaxial
cables. Figure 1 shows that the dc gain, fi, decreases by
more than a factor of 3 when the device is cooled from
room temperature to 87 K. The decrease in /3 can be understood from the relation:

I
100

FIG. 4. Electron mobility as a function of temperature for 4 X 10 cm - 3

p-type GaAs, (empty squares), shown with the theoretical values (solid
line).

p$ = 5000 cm*/V s at 79 K and p$ = 1055 cm*/V s at 300

K. Both of these values are comparable with the data obtained previously* where a transistor was used with
LB = 1.0 pm compared to our 0.6 pm. This agreement
demonstrates the validity of the method used to determine
the mobility. These values are also in good agreement with
the room-temperature value of 1300 cm*/V s obtained by
Ahrenkiel et ~1.~ using a different technique at 2X lo*
cme3 doping. Our lower value of the mobility at a higher
doping is expected and in agreement with the previous
measurements by Tiwari and Wright.5
The theoretical value calculated by Walukiewicz ef al.
is somewhat

lower at 79 K. As the temperature

is raised,

the calculated and the experimental curves cross one another, and at 300 K the calculated value is 1.7 times higher
than the experimental value. The measured change of mobility is approximately proportional to l/r, while the calculated mobility changes about half as fast. The origin of
this discrepancy is not clear at present. However, it may be
related in part to neglect of majority-carrier freezeout at
acceptor sites in the theoretical calculation.
As the temperature is increased, 7, increases as expected for radiative recombination as the hole distribution
becomes nondegenerate. The value of 7, was calculated
using Eq. (4) combined with gain measurements. At room
temperature, we found r, = 3.2 ns for a device with an
emitter area of 30 X 30 ,um* compared to rr = 2 ns obtained
earlier for a 20x 20 pm* sample.* At 87 K, rr = 1.1 ns
compared to 1.0 ns of the previous data which were taken
at 77 K. At the lower temperatures, the dependence on the
emitter area is much weaker. This suggests that surface
recombination is important at room temperature, but is
much less important at the lower temperatures. The behavior of recombination lifetime, rr is depicted in Fig. 5.
At 300 K the radiative lifetime has been calculated to
be between 1 and 2 ns by Casey and Stern6 at 4X lo*
cm - 3p-type GaAs compared to our measured value of 3.2
ns. We feel that this is a reasonable agreement.
In conclusion, the electron mobility and the electron
Beyzavi et al.

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,
100

I
200

I
300

T (4

FIG. 5. Recombination time vs temperature.

recombination time have been measured as a function of

temperature between 87 and 300 K for a hole concentration of 4x lo* cm- 3. The results show that & increases
with decreasing temperature. The dependence has the same
general shape as predicted by Walukiewicz et al., but the

1270

Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 58, No. 12, 25 March 1991

calcuIated curve changes much more slowly than the experimental curve.
The recombination is found to be almost all radiative
recombination at 87 K. At room-temperature surface recombination is also important. We have found r, = 3.2 ns
at 300 K and 1 to :! ns at 87 K. These values are in good
agreement with the previously measured* values of 2 ns for
room temperature and 1.0 ns for 77 K, and theoretically
calculated value of 1.1 ns at 297 K for radiative recombination by Casey and Stern. The dependence of TVon area
suggests that the surface is important at room temperature
but not at low temperatures.
We wish to acknowledge Keith Jenkins, Ali Ghiasi,
Richard Kiehl, David Frank, and Paul Solomon for technical discussions. We also acknowledge support from the
IBM SUR contract at the University of Minnesota.
W. Walukiewicz, J. Lagowski, L. Jastrzebski, and H. C. Gatos, J. Appl.
Phys. 50, 5040 (1979).
2M. I. Nathan, W. P. Dumke, K. Wrenner, S. Tiwari, S. L. Wright, and
K. A. Jenkins, Appl. Phys. Lett. 52, 654 ( 1988).
3S. M. Sze, Physics of Semiconductor Devices (Wiley. New York, 1987).
p. 158.
4R, K. Ahrenkiel, 13. J. Dunlavy. D. Greenberg, J. Schlupmann, H. C.
Hamaker, and H. F. MacMillan, Appl. Phys. Lett. 51, 776 ( 1987).
S. Tiwari and S. Wright, Appl. Phys. Lett. 56, 563 ( 1990).
bH. C. Casey, Jr. and Frank Stern, J. Appt. Phys. 47, 631 (1976).

Beyzavi et al.

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