Novel thermopiles based on modulation doped AlGaAs/InGaAs and AlGaN/GaN heterostructures are proposed and developed for the first time, for uncooled infrared FPA (Focal Plane Array) image sensor application. The high responsivity with the high speed response time are designed to 4,900 V/W with 110 µs for AlGaAs/InGaAs, and to 460 V/W with 9 µs for AlGaN/GaN thermopiles, respectively. Based on integrated HEMT-MEMS technology, the AlGaAs/InGaAs 3232 matrix FPAs are fabricated to demonstrate its enhanced performances by black body measurement. The technology presented here demonstrates the potential of this approach for low-cost uncooled infrared FPA image sensor application.

Novel thermopiles based on modulation doped AlGaAs/InGaAs, AlGaN/GaN, and ZnMgO/ZnO heterostructures are proposed and designed for the first time, for uncooled infrared image sensor application. These devices are expected to offer high performances due to both the superior Seebeck coefficient and the excellently high mobility of 2DEG and 2DHG due to high purity channel layers at the heterojunction interface. The AlGaAs/InGaAs thermopile has the figure-of-merit Z of as large as 1.110-2/K (ZT = 3.3 over unity at T = 300 K), and can be realized with a high responsivity R of 15,200 V/W and a high detectivity D* of 1.8109 cmHz1/2/W with uncooled low-cost potentiality. The AlGaN/GaN and the ZnMgO/ZnO thermopiles have the advantages of high sheet carrier concentration due to their large polarization charge effects (spontaneous and piezo polarization charges) as well as of a high Seebeck coefficient due to their strong phonon-drag effect. The high speed response time τ of 0.9 ms with AlGaN/GaN, and also the lower cost with ZnMgO/ZnO thermopiles can be realized. The modulation-doped heterostructure thermopiles presented here are expected to be used for uncooled infrared image sensor applications, and for monolithic integrations with other photon detectors such as InGaAs, GaN, and ZnO PiN photodiodes, as well as HEMT functional integrated circuit devices.

The GaAs industry has been growing immensely during recent years. This is mainly driven by the tremendous growth of the wireless communication market, which is still continuously growing. Additionally, an emerging mmW market with applications in automotive, defense and optoelectronics is further driving the demand for GaAs components. The two largest European GaAs fabrication companies, UMS and Filtronic are very well positioned to address the complete frequency range from 1 GHz up to 100 GHz for commercial, high volume low cost markets, as well as individual niche applications. An overview of the companies' structures, their processes and design capabilities and also their new product developments will be presented in this paper.

We propose an analysis method for Franz-Keldysh (FK) oscillations appearing in photoreflectance (PR) spectra of heterojunction device structures, which enables precise and simultaneous evaluation of the built-in electric field strength and band-gap energy. Samples for PR measurements were n+-GaAs/n-Al0.3 Ga0.7 As/i-GaAs heterostructures with different Al0.3Ga0.7As-layer thickness. We have found that the phase of the FK oscillations originating from the i-GaAs buffer layer depends on the Al0.3 Ga0.7 As-layer thickness. We have derived a calculation model for FK oscillations that includes the interference of probe light. From the comparison of the calculated spectra with the measured spectra, we conclude that mixing of the real and imaginary parts of a modulated dielectric function, which is caused by the probe-light interference, gives rise to the phase shift of the FK oscillations. Our FK-oscillation analysis method reduces ambiguity in the estimation of band-gap energy that is considerable in a conventional analysis.

We report here on the electrical and structural characteristics of InGaP/GaInAsN DHBTs with up to a 50 mV reduction in turn-on voltage relative to standard InGaP/GaAs HBTs. High p-type doping levels ( 3 1019 cm-3) and dc current gain (βmax up to 100) are achieved in GaInAsN base layer structures ranging in base sheet resistance between 250 and 750 Ω/. The separate effects of a base-emitter conduction band spike and base layer energy-gap on turn-on voltage are ascertained by comparing the collector current characteristics of several different GaAs-based bipolar transistors. Photoluminescence measurements are made on the InGaP/GaInAsN DHBTs to confirm the base layer energy gap, and double crystal x-ray diffraction spectrums are used to assess strain levels in the GaInAsN base layer.

The reduction of the drain current for InGaAs/AlGaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors (PHEMTs) has been observed due to the RIE-damage induced under the gate region. However, it has been found that the drain current can be recovered after the gate-drain reverse current stress even at room temperature. The recovery rate of the drain current strongly depends on the gate-drain reverse current density. The activation energy of the recovery rate has been confirmed to decrease from 0.531 eV to 0.119 eV under the gate-drain reverse current stress. This phenomenon can be understood as a recombination enhanced defect reaction of holes generated by the avalanche breakdown. The non-radiative recombination of holes at the defect level is believed to enhance the recovery of the RIE-damage.

Photoelectric techniques, such as photoluminescence are commonly used to evaluate and qualify heterostructure materials. These studies provide invaluable information on the energy configuration of these devices. In this paper, we extend photoelectric techniques to the evaluation of fully fabricated HBTs. We describe photoconduction measurements performed on the base/collector junctions in GaAs based HBTs. The devices studied contained a window in the emitter metal and monochromatic, chopped light was focused through a microscope into the window. The measurements are performed on wafer at room temperature. The spectral characteristic of the photocurrent provides information on the material and allows the determination of the source of the measured photocurrent. The dependence of the photocurrent on the junction bias allows the profiling of the junction. Three different collector structures were investigated, containing GaAs, AlGaAs, and InGaP. The effects of electron and hole barriers are evaluated. The information obtained allows for the design of improved HBTs.

Heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) are key devices for a variety of applications including L-band power amplifiers, high speed A/D converters, broadband amplifiers, laser drivers, and low phase noise oscillators. AlGaAs emitter HBTs have demonstrated sufficient reliability for L-band mobile phone applications. For applications which require extended reliability performance at high junction temperatures (>250) and large current densities (>50 kA/cm2), InGaP emitter HBTs are the preferred devices. The excellent reliability of InGaP/GaAs HBTs has been confirmed at various laboratories. At a moderate current density and junction temperature, Jc = 25 kA/cm2 and Tj = 264, no device failures were reported out to 10,000 hours in a sample of 10 devices. Reliability testing performed up to a junction temperature of 360 and at a higher current density (Jc = 60 kA/cm2) showed an extrapolated MTTF of 5 105 hours at Tj = 150. The activation energy for AlGaAs/GaAs HBTs was 0.57 eV, while the activation energy for InGaP/GaAs HBTs was 0.68 eV, which indicated a similar failure mechanism for both devices.

This paper describes a high-power and low-distortion AlGaAs/GaAs HFET amplifier developed for digital cellular base station system. We proved experimentally that distortion characteristics such as IMD (Intermodulation Distortion) or NPR (Noise Power Ratio) are drastically degraded when the absolute value of the drain bias circuit impedance at low frequency are high. Based on the experimental results, we have designed the drain bias circuit not to influence the distortion characteristics. The developed amplifier employed two pairs of pre-matched GaAs chips mounted on a single package and the total output-power was combined in push-pull configuration with a microstrip balun circuit. The push-pull amplifier demonstrated state-of-the-art performance of 140 W output-power with 11.5 dB linear gain at 2.2 GHz. In addition, it exhibited extremely low distortion performance of less than 30 dBc at two-tone total output-power of 46 dBm. These results indicate that the design of the drain bias circuit is of great importance to achieve improved IMD characteristics while maintaining high power performance.

AlGaAs/GaAs power HBTs for digital cellular phones have been developed. A three-dimensional thermal analysis taking the local-temperature dependence of the collector current into account was applied to the thermal design of the HBTs. The HBTs were fabricated using the hetero-guardring fully selfaligned transistor technique. The HBT with 220µm2 60 emitters produced a 31.7 dBm CW-output power and 46% poweradded efficiency with an adjacent channel leakage power of -49 dBc at the 50kHz offset bands for a 948 MHz π/4-shifted QPSK modulated signal at a low collector-emitter voltage of 3V. Through comparison with the conventional GaAs power FETs, it has been shown that AlGaAs/GaAs power HBTs have a great advantage in reducing the chip size.

The base transit time of an Aluminum-graded-base PNp AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) was studied in order to clarify the effect of aluminum grading in the base. Theoretical analysis using a classical drift diffusion model with velocity saturation at the base-collector junction and a high base quasielectric field (58 keV/cm) created by 20%-aluminum linear grading in a 400 base, leads to a base transit time (τb) of 0.9 ps. The base transit time is reduced by four times, compared to the base transit time of 3.6 ps without aluminum grading in the base. In order to demonstrate this advantage, we fabricated aluminum-graded-base PNp AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction transistor which employs a 20%-aluminum linear graded 400 -wide base. The device with a 2 µm 10 µm emitter showed high RF performance with a cut-off frequency (ft) of 37 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) of 30 GHz at a collector current density of 3.4 104 A/cm2. Further analysis using direct parameter extraction of a small signal circuit model under the collector current density of 1.1-9.9104 A/cm2 indicated the intrinsic transit time, which is the sum of the base transit time and the collector depletion layer transit time (τSC), was as low as 2.3 ps under lowinjection level. Subtracting the collector depletion-layer transit time from the intrinsic time leads to a base transit time of 1.1 ps, which is close to the theoretical base transit time and is the shortest value ever reported. The structure is very attractive for pnp-type AlGaAs HBTs combined with Npn HBTs for complementary applications.

An ultra low noise 50-GHz-Band amplifier (LNA) MMIC has been developed using an AlGaAs/InGaAs pseudomorphic HEMT. A noise figure of 1.8 dB with an associated gain of 8.1 dB is achieved at 50 GHz. The noise figure is less than 2.0 dB from 50 GHz to 52.5 GHz. This is the state-of-the-art noise figure for low noise amplifiers around 50 GHz. The success of this LNA development came from the excellent HEMT and MMIC technologies and the accurate modeling of active and passive elements. Good agreement between measured and simulated data over the band from 40 GHz to 60 GHz is obtained.

A design of a high power laser structure is presented which is based on an increase of the cavity length as well as a maximization of the stripe width. This requires a low value for the modal attenuation coefficent and a low optical confinement factor. A model is presented from which the modal gain, the confinement factor, the active region thickness, the stripe width, the length and the reflection coefficients can be calculated. A variant for all design parameters needed to reach 1 W emission in the fundamental lateral mode is given. These values are used to design the epitaxial structure.

We found degraded output power due to discoloration of an abnormal epitaxial layer caused by supercooling of residual melt in liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) process of AlGaAs/GaAs heteroface solar cells developed to improve conversion efficiency of solar cells for satellites. We studied the discoloration mechanism and found effective methods for obtaning a good epitaxial layer. Using these results, we manufactured about 80,000 pieces of solar cells and employed them in the Japanese domestic Communication Satellite-3 (CS-3) launched by National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). Five years after launch, these solar cells are still supplying the output power than predicted. This paper describes reliability improvements for the surface of epitaxial layer and successful results aftes 5 years of space operation.

A one-by-four static frequency divider using AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) was designed to operate at a bias condition that gave a maximum cutoff frequency fT and a maximum oscillation freqency fmax. The fT and fmax applied to the divider were 68 GHz and 56 GHz, respectively. As a result of the tests, the circuit operated up to 34.8 GHz at a power supply voltage of 9 V and power dissipation of 495 mW. A low minimum input signal power level of 0 dBm was also achieved.