Effects of traps and polarization charges on device performance of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors

• Role and dynamic of traps are so affected on performance of HEMTs device.
• Device performance improved by optimizing the fixed interface charge.
• Electron quantization increased the drain current and make threshold voltage shift.

This paper presents the simulated electrical characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) by using ISE TCAD software. The effects of interface traps, bulk traps and polarization charges are investigated. It was observed that the role and dynamic of traps affect the device performance which requires a precondition to calculate the DC characteristics that are in agreement with the experimental data. On the other hand, polarization charges lead to quantum confinement of the electrons in the channel and form two-dimensional electron gas. The electron quantization leads to increasing the drain current and shift in the threshold voltage. The device performance can be improved by optimizing the fixed interface charge and thus reducing the bulk traps to enhance the DC characteristics.