Remote phonon and surface roughness limited universal electron mobility of In_0.53Ga_0.47As surface channel MOSFETs

The inversion layer electron mobility in n-channel In_0.53Ga _0.47As MOSFET's with HfO₂ gate dielectric with several substrate impurity concentrations (∼1 × 10¹⁶ cm ^-3 to ∼1 × 10¹⁸ cm^-3) and various surface preparations (HF surface clean, (NH₄)₂S surface clean and PECVD a-Si interlayer with a HfO₂ gate dielectric) have been studied. The peak electron mobility is observed to be strongly dependent on the surface preparation, but the high field mobility is observed to be almost independent of the surface preparation. A detailed analysis of the effective mobility as a function of electric field, substrate doping, and temperature was used to determine the various mobility components (surface roughness, phonon, and coulombic scattering limited mobility components). For the substrates with high doping concentration, the electron mobility at low vertical electric field is dominated by Coulomb scattering from the substrate dopants, whereas, for lower substrate doping the Coulombic scattering is dominated by the disorder induced gap states. Low temperature measurements were used to determine the surface roughness scattering and phonon components. The results show that room temperature mobility of In_0.53Ga_0.47As surface channel MOSFETs with HfO₂ gate dielectric at high electric field is limited primarily by remote phonons whereas the Al₂O₃ gate dielectric is limited by surface roughness scattering.