Thermal stability of heterojunction interfaces in GaAs/AlGaAsstructures

Reports on the preliminary study of the stability of GaAs/AlGaAs interfaces under thermal stressing up to 1000°C in an optical furnace. The interfaces are studied using RBS and SIMS techniques and they confirm that no observable degradation occurs up to 900°C. At 1000°C diffusion of aluminium from the AlGaAs layer into the GaAs occurs but this is at a very low level     

Subsurface burnout mechanisms in gallium arsenide (GAAS) electronic devices

This paper reviews the present knowledge on subsurface burnout mechanisms in Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) electronic devices. The results of the work should assist in the creation of more reliable devices with greater radiation hardness.     

Laser Annealed and Thermal Annealed Refractory Ohmic Contacts to GaAs

Ohmic contacts to n-type GaAs have been developed for high-temperature device applications up to 300°C. Refractory metallizations were used with epitaxial Ge layers to form the contacts TiW/Ge/GaAs, Ta/Ge/GaAs, Mo/Ge/GaAs, and Ni/Ge/GaAs. Contacts with high dose Si or Se ion implantation (1012 to 1014/cm2) of the Ge/GaAs interface were also investigated. The purpose of this work was to develop refractory ohmic contacts with low specific-contact resistance (~10-6 ?cm2 on 1 x 1017cm-3GaAs) which are free of imperfections, resulting in a uniform n+ doping layer. The contacts were fabricated on epitaxial GaAs layers (n = 2 x 1016 to 2 x 1017 cm-3) grown on n+ ( 2 x 1018 cm-3) or semi-insulating GaAs (at strates. Ohmic contact was formed by both thermal annealing ( at temperatures up to 700°C) and laser annealing (pulsed Ruby). Examination of the Ge/GaAs interface revealed Ge migration into GaAs to form an n+layer. Under optimum laser anneal conditions, the specific contact resistance was in the range 1-5 x 10-6 ?-cm2 (on 2 x 1017cm-3GaAs). Thermally annealed TiW/Ge had a contact resitivity of 1 x 10-6 ? cm2 on 1 x 1017 cm-3 GaAs under optimum anneal conditions. The contacts also showed improved thermal stability over conventional Ni/AuGe contacts at temperatures above 300°C.     

Silicide formation and interdiffusion effects in Si-Ta,SiO2-Ta AND Si-PtSi-Ta thin film structures

The formation of TaSi₂ in the Si-PtSi-Ta and Si-Ta systems has been studied using Auger spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction and electron diffraction techniques. The reaction of tantalum with PtSi was observed by Sinha, et al.^l to take place with high temperature (800°-900°c) annealing of thin film systems consisting of Si-PtSi-Ta-W¹. In the present investigation, it is shown that tantalum reacts with PtSi at approximately 600°C to form a mixture of Ta₅Si₃ and TaSi₂ and predominantly TaSi₂ at 785°C. Platinum is displaced at the refractory metal (Ta)-PtSi interface, whereupon the more stable refractory metal-silicide is formed. The displaced platinum reacts further with the excess silicon which diffuses from the Si-PtSi interface. The Si-PtSi-Ta reaction is similar to the Si-PtSi-W reaction. However, unlike tungsten which migrates very little in the Si-PtSi-W system, tantalum appears to interdiffuse with the PtSi at temperatures as low as 600°C. In the case of the Si-Ta couple, TaSi₂ forms at approximately 750°C as determined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements. The kinetics of TaSi₂ formation at the Si-Ta interface are compared to that which takes place at the PtSi-Ta interface to determine the influence of the PtSi layer. Silicide formation was not observed in SiO₂-Ta specimens. after anneals up to 800°c. At 750°C Ta₂O₅ formed as observed by electron diffraction.     

Mixed valency in polynuclear MnII/MnIII, MnIII/MnIV and MnII/MnIII/MnIV clusters: a foundation for high-spin molecules and single-molecule magnets

Mixed-valent Mn/O dinuclear and polynuclear molecular compounds containing MnIII are almost without exception trapped valence. Large differences between the strengths of the exchange interactions within MnIIMnIII, MnIIIMnIII and MnIIIMnIV pairs lead to situations where MnIIIMnIV interactions, the strongest of the three mentioned and antiferromagnetic in nature, dominate the intramolecular spin alignments in trinuclear and higher nuclearity mixed-valent complexes and often result in molecules that have large, and sometimes abnormally large, values of molecular spin (S). When coupled to a large molecular magnetoanisotropy of the easy-axis-type (negative zero-field splitting parameter, D), also primarily resulting from individual Jahn-Teller distorted MnIII centres, such molecules will function as single-molecule magnets (molecular nanomagnets). Dissection of the structures and exchange interactions within a variety of mixed-valent Mnx cluster molecules with metal nuclearities of Mn4, Mn12 and Mn25 allows a ready rationalization of the observed S, D and overall magnetic properties in terms of competing antiferromagnetic exchange interactions within triangular subunits, resulting spin alignments and relative orientation of MnIII JT axes. Such an understanding has provided a stepping stone to the identification of a 'magnetically soft' Mn25 cluster whose groundstate spin S value can be significantly altered by relatively minor structural perturbations. Such 'spin tweaking' has allowed this cluster to be obtained in three different forms with three different groundstate S values.     

Reliability problems in state-of-the-art GaAs devices and circuits

A review of the reliability status of GaAs discrete devices and integrated circuits is given. In the present survey of new devices and circuits it is shown that a significant number of reliability problems continue to persist.     

Reliability Model for Polyimide–Metal Interconnect Shorts in GaAs ASICs

A physical reliability model has been developed to calculate the time to failure of polyimide–metal multilevel interconnected GaAs components due to the shorts between interconnect metallizations through a polyimide interlayer. The failure mechanism for the shorts between neighboring metals through the polyimide is described as a stress‐assisted diffusion process along a polyimide microcrack due to the combination of process defect and high thermal stress concentration. The finite element method has been used to determine the temperature increase during operation and the resulting thermal stress due to the difference in coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs) of the materials used in the multilevel metallization GaAs module of devices. Numerical methods have been used to solve the partial differential diffusion equations with stress gradients in order to obtain the time to failure of the devices. The time to failure for the shorts between metal level 4 and metal 2 at 123 °C operating temperature was calculated to be 20 h for the conditions analyzed. The activation energy for the failure of the shorts between two level metals was calculated to be 0.48 eV. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.