Oxide Charge Engineering of Atomic Layer Deposited AlOxNy/Al2O3 Gate Dielectrics: A Path to Enhancement Mode GaN Devices

Nitrogen incorporation to produce negative fixed charge in Al2O3 gate insulator layers is investigated as a path to achieve enhancement mode GaN device operation. A uniform distribution of nitrogen across the resulting AlOxNy films is obtained using N-2 plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (ALD): The flat band voltage (V-fb) increases to a significantly more positive value with increasing nitrogen concentration. Insertion of a 2 nm thick Al2O3 interlayer greatly decreases the trap density of the insulator/GaN interface, and reduces the voltage hysteresis and frequency dispersion of gate capacitance compared to single-layer AlOxNy gate insulators in GaN MOSCAPs.