We report on non-thermal negative differential conductivity (NDC) in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs grown on sapphire substrates by low-pressure MOCVD. The sheet electron density was on the order of few times 1012cm−2 and the Hall mobility was 1,000 cm2/V.s. The HEMTs had threshold voltage close to zero and could operate at high positive gate bias up to 3 to 3.5 Volts, with a very low gate leakage current. NDC was observed at the gate bias larger than 1.5V and at the drain biases between approximately 0.5Vg and Vg. We excluded the possibility of self-heating as the cause, since the NDC occurs at relatively small power levels where self-heating effects are negligible.

An explanation we provided for the NDC effect is the new mechanism of real space charge transfer from 2D to 3D GaN states, which leads to a decrease in the channel mobility at large 2D electron gas densities. The observed low leakage can be explained by an enhanced molar fraction of aluminum at the heterointerface that results in a larger conduction band discontinuity. Our model that accounts for the piezoelectric and pyroelectric effects is consistent with the observed NDC effect. The Hall mobility dependence on the gate bias and sheet carrier concentration [1] is consistent with the real space transfer mechanism.

This NDC effect in GaN/AlGaN HEMTs may find applications in high-performance digital circuits at elevated temperatures.