UC Santa Barbara

We report AlGaN-GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on SiC substrates with excellent microwave power and efficiency performance. The GaN buffers in these samples were doped with carbon to make them insulating. To reduce gate leakage, a thin silicon nitride film was deposited on the AlGaN surface by chemical vapor deposition. At 4 GHz, an output power density of 6.6 W/mm was obtained with 57% power-added efficiency (PAE) and a gain of 10, dB at a drain bias of 35 V. This is the highest PAE reported until now at 4 GHz in AlGaN-GaN HEMTs grown by MBE. At 10 GHz, we measured an output power density of 7.3 W/mm with a PAE of 36% and gain of 7.6 dB at 40-V drain bias.