Impact of high energy particles on InGaP/InGaAs pseudomorphic HEMTs

Irradiation damage and its recovery behavior resulting from thermal annealing in InGaP/InGaAs pseudomorphic HEMTs, subjected to a 20 MeV alpha ray and 220 MeV carbon, are studied for the first time. The drain current and effective mobility decrease after irradiation, while the threshold voltage increases in positive direction. The degradation of device performance increases with increasing fluence. The decrease of the mobility is thought to be due to the scattering of channel electrons with the induced lattice defects and also to the decrease of the electron density in the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) region. The influence of the radiation source on the degradation and recovery is discussed by comparison with 1 MeV electron and 1 MeV fast neutron exposures with respect to the number of knock-on atoms and the nonionizing energy loss (NIEL). Isochronal thermal annealing for temperatures ranging from 75 to 300°C shows that the device performance degraded by the irradiation recovers completely