Study on Single Event Leakage Current Damage in P-GaN HEMTs under Different Voltage Biases

In this work, the mechanisms of single event leakage current (SELC) damage in P-type gallium nitride gate high electron mobility transistors (P-GaN HEMTs) under different voltage biases were investigated based on experiments and simulation. In the experiments, we performed irradiation work with tantalum (Ta) ions at an average energy of 1334.92 MeV and LET (Linear Energy Transfer) value of 82.06 MeV/(mg/cm²) under various drain and gate biases. Three-terminal I-V test results show that the main leakage path of SELC is between the gate and the drain. The simulation results indicate that the local electric field enhancement and heat accumulation are the main causes of device damage. Higher drain voltage bias and negative gate voltage bias will bring higher local peak electric field and normalized max temperature, which will lead to more serious SELC damage. This study focuses on the voltage bias dependence of SELC damage in P-GaN HEMTs, providing a reference for the safe operation of P-GaN HEMTs in space environments, especially under negative gate voltage.