The effect of traps at the free surface of GaAs field effect transistors

In a GaAs field effect transistor there are ungated sections of the channel between the gate and the source/drain. The static characteristics and the transients which occur in various parameters after a change in the bias voltages can be shown to be affected by the surface potential in this region. A model is proposed for these effects which involves a surface region with lower effective energy gap. The gate current leakage characteristics and conductance deep level transient spectroscopy measurements on single and dual gate devices are consistent with this model. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.