High performance vacuum annealed beta-(AlxGa1-x)2O3/Ga2O3 HFET with f_T/f_MAX of 32/65 GHz

Abstract: This letter reports high performance beta-(AlxGa1-x)2O3/Ga2O3 Heterostructure FET (HFET) with improved regrowth process. Highly scaled I shaped gate have been fabricated with degenerately doped (N++) source/drain contact regrown by ozone molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Aiming to address the limitations observed in previous generation devices, this work incorporates a low-power BCl3/Ar and SF6/Ar plasma etching process to remove the AlGaO barrier layer and Ga2O3 layer respectively before regrowth. Additionally, the surface was cleaned and vacuum annealing was carried out before MBE regrowth to reduce any interface resistance between highly doped regrowth N++ and 2DEG layer. These meticulously designed fabrication steps enabled us to achieve the high DC current 0.5 A/mm at 5V drain bias with 6.1 $\mathrm{\Omega}$.mm on resistance (R\textsubscript{ON}) at V_GS=3V, peak transconductance (g_m) of 110 mS/mm at room temperature (V_DS=15V) and around 0.8 A/mm (V_DS=5V) peak I_ON} at low temperature (100K). Current gain cut-off frequency (f_T) of 32 GHz and peak power gain cut-off frequency (f_MAX) of 65 GHz were extracted from RF measurements. f_T.L_G product was estimated to be 6.1 GHz-$\mu$m for 191 nm L_G and 32 GHz f_T, which is one of the highest reported among Ga2O3 devices. With thicker Al2O3, device shows no current collapse demonstrating first time successful traps passivation with Al2O3 for Ga2O3 devices.