Recess-free AlGaN/GaN lateral Schottky barrier controlled Schottky rectifier with low turn-on voltage and high reverse blocking

High-performance AlGaN/GaN-on-Si diodes are fabricated with lateral Schottky barrier controlled Schottky rectifier (LSBS) on thin-barrier (5nm) AlGaN/GaN heterostructures, which features a recess-free process, enabling better electrostatic control to pinch off the channel under the anode region. In this way, low leakage currents (3-orders of magnitude lower than conventional recessed Schottky-barrier-diode (SBD)) and a high reverse breakdown voltage of 1700 V (@10μA/mm) are reached, together with a low onset voltage of only 0.37 V and a record low on-state resistance R_{on, sp} of 10 mΩ·cm² for GaN-based SBDs with an Anode-to-Cathode distance (L_AC) of 10 μm. This is attributed to the combination of an effectively preserved 2DEG by LPCVD SiN_x passivation and a hybrid Schottky /Ohmic anode. Thanks to the recess free technology and low damage in the Schottky region, stable preliminary HTRB performance are obtained. The proposed diode fabrication is compatible with GaN depletion/enhancement MIS-HEMTs process flow, enabling integration in the promising smart GaN platform.