Engineering and direct imaging of nanocube self-assembly pathways
December 17, 2024
Tuesday publication post! In this work, the #FusionAX system was used for electrothermal studies of high electron mobility transistors! Congratulations to this nice publication to Nahid Sultan Al-Mamun ,Ahmad Islam, Nicholas Glavin, Aman Haque, Douglas E.Wolfe, Fan Ren and Stephen Pearton!
️High-temperature operation is a critical factor impacting the reliability of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs). Traditional degradation studies rely on post-mortem analysis, but with Fusion AX it is possible to show defect evolution in real-time using in situ TEM.
️⚡This study used the #Protochips electrothermal E-chips for the #FusionAX, which enable simultaneous biasing and heating inside the TEM. This allowed the authors to observe the nucleation and propagation of defects as they occurred under elevated temperatures, revealing critical failure mechanisms like:
Nucleation of new defects and propagation of existing ones, even at low bias conditions.
Schottky gate contact degradation due to Au diffusion at the metal-semiconductor interface, confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS).
Evolution of defect clusters such as dislocation networks, stacking faults, and amorphized regions, which increase lattice strain and lead to catastrophic device failure.
These insights into the thermal and operational limits of HEMTs can directly inform improvements in device reliability and performance under high-temperature conditions.
Want to read the whole paper?
Find it here:
https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.microrel.2024.115470
Want to know more about our FusionAX solution?
https://www.protochips.com/solutions/in-situ-tem-solutions/in-situ-heating-and-electrical/
#Protochips #FindYourBreakthrough #InSituBiasing #InSituHeating #InSituMicroscopy
