The effects of thermal annealing on iron bombarded InP/InGaAs multilayer structures

The effects of Fe-ion bombardment at 77 K (cold) and room temperature (RT) into single layer InGaAs, InP and multilayer InP/InGaAs HBT structures have been investigated. Annealing characteristics and RF dissipation loss measurements of Fe-ion bombarded samples at 77 K indicated good electrical isolation in n-, p-type InGaAs materials and InP/InGaAs HBT structures. Thermally stable (up to 250 °C) high sheet resistance (Rsh) of ∼5 × 106 Ω/sq has been achieved on these samples while higher Rsh of ∼107 Ω/sq was obtained for the n-InP materials bombarded with similar conditions. Dissipation losses of 1.7 dB/cm at 10 GHz and 2.8 dB/cm at 40 GHz have been measured for the cold Fe-ion bombarded InP-based HBT structures. This result is similar to those obtained for an un-bombarded S.I. InP substrate, indicating good electrical isolation. We have also determined electron trapping levels by thermal annealing for the cold and RT Fe-ion bombarded samples. It is shown that the high resistivity achieved in the cold implanted InGaAs layer is most likely due to the creation of mid-bandgap defect levels (EC − 0.33) eV, which are created only in the cold Fe-ion bombardment. The DC isolation and RF dissipation loss analysis have been used to identify a suitable bombardment scheme for the fabrication of planar InP/InGaAs HBTs.