Revolutionize Wireless Communication Transistors with Gallium Nitride

Researchers at the University of Delaware have developed a new, high-electron mobility transistor based on gallium nitride (GaN) with a barrier of indium aluminum-nitride on top of a silicon substrate.  Among its record-setting properties, the new transistor demonstrates the following:

• Low gate leakage current that ensures over the operation of the device, it does not lose a significant amount of current in the form of heat and general efficiency loss
• High on/off current ratio which generates a large, measureable difference in the magnitude of current that is transmitted when the device is in its on state versus its off state
• High current gain cutoff frequency that indicates the quantity of data that can be transmitted over the device through a wide range of frequencies

Devices that utilize this transistor would be able to leverage the combination of GaN and silicon in order to achieve higher voltage values and longer battery life than the devices that currently exist on the market.  Now that this transistor has been created, it has the potential to be used an essential component in devices build for high bandwidth wireless communications in the nascent 5G and internet-of-things industries.

Figure 1: New transistors created by Zeng’s team with various record-setting properties for the wireless communications. Source: Kathy F. Atkinson

Gallium Nitride (GaN) wafers and substrates can be found at MSE Supplies.  GaN can be provided in a variety of forms, from templates on sapphire to free standing substrates to GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) wafers on silicon, sapphire, or silicon carbide.  Aluminum Nitride (AlN) wafers on sapphire or HEMT are also available for purchase.

Single crystals, wafers, & substrates of silicon material can also be found at MSE Supplies to suit several research and production requirements.  These materials are essential building blocks in devices such as LEDs, transistors, ferroelectric, piezoelectric, electro-optical, photonic, and high power electronic devices.