High energy irradiation effects on AlGaN/GaN HFET devices

The effect of proton, carbon, oxygen and krypton irradiation on AlGaN HFET devices has been studied. Irradiation was performed at 68 and 120 MeV with fluences in the range from 1 × 107 to 1 × 1013 cm−2. Before and after irradiation, dc and pulsed I–V characteristics, loadpull and S-parameters of the AlGaN HFET devices were measured. A thick GaN reference layer was characterized by x-ray diffraction, photoluminescence and Hall measurements before and after irradiation. Proton, carbon and oxygen irradiation show no degradation in devices while krypton irradiation shows a small change at a fluence of 1 × 1010 cm−2 in the device characteristics. The device results are correlated with the thick GaN results.