Transport Properties of III-N Hot Electron Transistors

Unipolar hot electron transistors (HETs) represent a tantalizing alternative to established bipolar transistor technologies. During device operation electrons are injected over a large emitter barrier into the base where they travel along the device axis with very high velocity. Upon arrival at the collector barrier, high-energy electrons pass over the barrier and contribute to collector current while low-energy electrons are quantum mechanically reflected back into the base. Designing the base with thickness equal to or less than the hot electron mean free path serves to minimize scattering events and thus enable quasi-ballistic operation. Large current gain is achieved by increasing the ratio of transmitted to reflected electrons. Although III-N HETs have undergone substantial development in recent years, there remain ample opportunities to improve key device metrics.In order to engineer improved device performance, a deeper understanding of theoperative transport physics is needed. Fortunately, the HET provides fertile groundfor studying several prominent electron transport phenomena. In this thesis we presentresults from several studies that use the III-N HET as both emitter and analyzer ofhot electron momentum states. The first provides a measurement of the hot electronmean free path and the momentum relaxation rate in GaN; the second relies on a newtechnique called electron injection spectroscopy to investigate the effects of barrier heightinhomogeneity in the emitter. To supplement our analysis we develop a comprehensivetheory of coherent electron transport that allows us to model the transfer characteristicsof complex heterojunctions. Such a model provides a theoretical touchstone with whichto compare our experimental results. While these studies are of potential interest in theirown right, we interpret the results with an eye toward improving next-generation deviceperformance