A gallium phosphide high-temperature bipolar junction transistor

Preliminary results are reported on the development of a high temperature (350 C) gallium phosphide bipolar junction transistor (BJT) for geothermal and other energy applications. This four-layer p(+)n(-)pp(+) structure was formed by liquid phase epitaxy using a supercooling technique to insure uniform nucleation of the thin layers. Magnesium was used as the p-type dopant to avoid excessive out-diffusion into the lightly doped base. By appropriate choice of electrodes, the device may also be driven as an n-channel junction field-effect transistor. The initial design suffers from a series resistance problem which limits the transistor's usefulness at high temperatures

Photonics at Sandia National Laboratories: From research to applications

Photonics activities at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) are founded on a strong materials research program. The advent of the Compound Semiconductor Research Laboratory (CSRL) in 1988, accelerated device and materials research and development. Recently, industrial competitiveness has been added as a major mission of the labs. Photonics projects have expanded towards applications-driven programs requiring device and subsystem prototype deliveries and demonstrations. This evolution has resulted in a full range of photonics programs from materials synthesis and device fabrication to subsystem packaging and test

Gallium phosphide high-temperature bipolar junction transistor

Preliminary results are reported on the development of a high-temperature (> 350/sup 0/C) gallium phosphide bipolar junction transistor (BJT) for goethermal and other energy applications. This four-layer p/sup +/n/sup -/pp/sup +/ structure was fromed by liquid phase epitaxy using a supercooling technique to insure uniform nucleation of the thin layers. Magnesium was used as the p-type dopant to avoid excessive out-diffusion into the lightly doped base. By appropriate choice of electrodes, the device may also be driven as an n-channel junction field-effect transistor. The gallium phosphide BJT is observed to have a common-emitter current gain peaking in the range of 6 to 10 (for temperatures from 20/sup 0/C to 400/sup 0/C) and a room-temperature, punchthrough-limited, collector-emitter breakdown voltage of approximately -6V. Other parameters of interest include an f/sub/ = 400 KHz (at 20/sup 0/C) and a collector base leakage current = 200 ..mu..A (at 350/sup 0/C)

Optically-triggered GaAs thyristor switches: Integrated structures for environmental hardening

Optically-triggered thyristor switches often operate in adverse environments, such as high temperature and high dose-rate transient radiation, which can result in lowered operating voltage and premature triggering. These effects can be reduced by connecting or monolithically integrating a reverse-biased compensating photodiode or phototransistor into the gate of the optically-triggered thyristor. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of this hardening concept in silicon thyristors packaged with photodiodes, and in gallium arsenide optically-triggered thyristors monolithically integrated with compensating phototransistors

Pulsed irradiation of optimized, MBE grown, AlGaAs/GaAs radiation hardened photodiodes. Rev

An AlGaAs/GaAs double heterojunction, mesa isolated, photodiode grown by molecular beam epitaxy was irradiated with 18 MeV electrons, 1 to 10 MeV x-rays, and neutrons from a pulsed reactor. Test results indicate that the AlGaAs/GaAs photodiodes generate approximately 10 to 20 times less photocurrent during exposure to a pulse of ionizing-radiation than radiation hardened silicon PIN photodiodes. Studies of neutron induced permanent damage in the AlGaAs/GaAs photodiode show only small changes in optical responsivity and a factor of 8 increase in leakage currents after exposure to 3.6 x 10/sup 15/ neutrons/cm/sup 2/ and 900 krad gamma. The silicon PIN photodiode was exposed to only 28% of the fluence used on the AlGaAs photodiodes and we observed a 40% decrease in optical responsivity and a factor of 7000 increase in leakage current