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Hetero Junctions

Heterojunctions are interfaces between two semiconductors with different bandgaps. Modulation-doped heterojunctions spatially separate charge carriers from the dopants that produce them, improving device performance. The most common example is an n-doped AlGaAs/intrinsic GaAs junction. An inversion layer forms at the interface due to band bending, creating a 2D electron gas with high mobility. Similar structures are used in SiGe transistors to enhance mobility through strain engineering and bandgap/offset manipulation. Proper design of heterojunctions allows tailoring of carrier concentrations and transport properties.

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Assini Hussain
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399 views19 pages

Hetero Junctions

Heterojunctions are interfaces between two semiconductors with different bandgaps. Modulation-doped heterojunctions spatially separate charge carriers from the dopants that produce them, improving device performance. The most common example is an n-doped AlGaAs/intrinsic GaAs junction. An inversion layer forms at the interface due to band bending, creating a 2D electron gas with high mobility. Similar structures are used in SiGe transistors to enhance mobility through strain engineering and bandgap/offset manipulation. Proper design of heterojunctions allows tailoring of carrier concentrations and transport properties.

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Assini Hussain
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Heterojunctions

Modulation-doped heterojunctions
They are the interfaces between two semiconductors of different gaps, and are one of the most versatile building blocks of electronic devices, especially those based on III-V compounds Most studied heterostructure is n-type AlxGa1xAs and almost intrinsic or lightly doped p-type GaAs hetrojunction. Similar to the MOS structure, an inversion layer of electrons is formed in the GaAs close to the GaAsAlGaAs interface.

Therefore the principle be very similar to MOS structure Mainly used in higher frequencies than Si devices due to the high mobility of electrons in GaAs. Most important device applications are based on a Schottky structure of the type metalAlGaAs GaAs

The band diagram of the AlxGa1xAsGaAs heterojunction

We have an AlGaAsGaAs heterojunction, where the left material is GaAs doped with Al and the right one is near-intrinsic GaAs. This structure is called a modulation-doped heterojunction and the method to produce it is known as modulation doping Before the two semiconductors enter in contact, the Fermi-level in n-type AlGaAs is close to the conduction band, and for lightly p-doped GaAs is located close to the middle of the gap

The bands are at because the materials are electrically neutral and have uniform doping The barrier between the material in the conduction band, Ec, can be approximately found following Andersons rule. According to this rule, when we join two materials, the vacuum levels should line up. If A and B are the electron affinities of the AlGaAs and GaAs, respectively, we should have Ec A B

Since the electron afnity of a semiconductor is dened as the energy required for an electron located at the bottom Ec of the conduction band, to get out of the solid, i.e. = Evac Ec. According to this rule, one gets a value of Ec of 0.35 eV for a doping x in AlxGa1xAs around 0.3.

When both materials in contact, some of the electrons from the donors of the n-material will cross the interface reaching the undoped GaAs. Similar to the pn junction, an internal electric eld will be created and directed from the nonneutralized donors in the AlGaAs to the additional electronic charges in the GaAs. This eld causes the band bending

At equilibrium, the two Fermi levels line up, the bands are bent like in the case of the pn junction, with the only difference that the barrier Ec is created. Far from the interface, the bottom Ec of the conduction bands is at and at the same distance from the Fermi level EF

The quantum well for the electrons produced at the AlGaAsGaAs interface has a shape close to a triangle similar to MOS structure If we call z the direction perpendicular to the interface, the electrons forming the 2D inversion layer are free to move along the (x, y) plane, but their energy for the motion along z is quantized as in a potential well. An important aspect of this heterojunction is that the charge carriers are located in a region (mainly in the GaAs), spatially separated from the AlGaAs semiconductor which originates the free electrons

For understanding, solution by Poissons equation for the potential and Schrdingers equation for the electron wave functions, but they are complicated. So the problem has been solved, usually taking some approximations, such as assuming that the potential well is perfectly triangular in shape The wells cannot be assumed to be of innite height, since Ec 0.3 eV. Detailed calculations also allow calculation of the average width of the well (4080), the electron concentration per unit area, ns 1012cm2, and the energy 1 of the rst level 0.04 eV

SiGe strained heterostructures


At first SiGe heterojunctions did not attract too much attention, because of the large lattice constant difference between Si and Ge which amounts to about 4% ( 0.2 ) This means that a critical thickness should not be surpassed otherwise the structure breaks off. Also the energy gaps of silicon (Eg = 1.12 eV) and germanium (Eg = 0.66 eV) are fairly small, then the height of the barriers which appear at the interface should always be small.

But SiGe heterostructures are used in several elds such as high frequency transistors and IR photodetectors. Since SiGe are strained, the degeneracy of the heavy and light hole bands is lifted and the band structures show similar features to those shown below

Two typical examples of SiGe heterostructures

First case, the substrate is <001> Si (Eg = 1.17 eV) and the strained active layer Si0.7Ge0.3 (Eg = 0.78 eV). In this case the conduction band offset is smaller comparing to the valence band offset. This situation allows the formation of a 2D hole gas in the SiGe alloy, with electron mobilities around 2m2V1s1. It is about half of that of a typical MOSFET

In second case, the situation is reversed and the strained layer is Si. Here the discontinuity in the conduction band is fairly large and the electrons form a 2D gas, with free motion in the plane of the interface. The silicon effective mass corresponding to this motion is the low transversal one (mT 0.19m0), therefore yielding a high mobility of around 20m2V1s1, which is several times higher than that of the MOSFET.

SiGe heterostructures have also found an important application in the eld of bipolar silicon transistors One way to improve the efciency of a bipolar transistor is to use a narrow-bandgap material for the base region, which improves the efciency of the Si emitter region. This can be achieved by reducing values of the SiGe bandgap alloys, in comparison to silicon. The strain that appears in the heterojunction also contributes to the decrease of the bandgap. The large bandgap offset allows the fabrication of a highly doped, low resistivity, base material, which extends the performance of silicon transistors to much higher frequencies.

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