Multiphysics Characterization of GaN Materials and Devices for Power Applications

Download or read book Multiphysics Characterization of GaN Materials and Devices for Power Applications written by Atse Julien Eric N'Dohi and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silicon power electronics has shown its limits due to its incapacity to sustain high voltage, high temperature and high frequency applications. Therefore, the need to resort to materials with larger band gap and solve silicon (Si) technological issues for high voltage operations has been getting more and more intense. Wide band gap materials such as Silicon Carbide (SiC), Gallium Nitride (GaN), and Diamond are very promising for power electronics because of their interesting physical properties such like high carrier mobility, high critical electric field and good thermal conductivity than Si that enable them to perform at high voltage and temperature domains. Semiconductors manufacturing companies indeed, consider them as potentials power or current converters, inverters and rectifers for improving home and industrial energy distribution and consumption in a better way. However, the road to get them into a larger mass production technology is still long because recent researches have shown that their performance is pinned by some physical phenomena such as structural defects appearance, strain and stress effects, doping and dopant control and effectivess and so on. Thus, ruling out these problems by a deep understanding of the physical mechanisms behind them is a key option in optimizing their performance. In this thesis, we confronted the physical and electrical properties of GaN material and devices through multiphysics and electrical characterizations approach such as micro Raman, cathodoluminescence and classical current-voltage I (V) measurements. The objective is to get an insight into the physical performance of these power electronic materials (SiC, GaN), especially of GaN based power devices due to their higher carrier mobility compared to SiC and their growing technology maturity for mass production and distribution; and suggest if possible, ways of optimizing their operating abilities at a micro level. The coupling of these characterization methods allow us to have a deep view of the physical mechanisms that support the high voltage or temperature operation of these GaN based materials and as well as help us to grab the discrepancy existing between physical theoretical parameters established through finite elements simulations and true experimental value.