Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
We report on experiments that were performed to evaluate the temperature stability and long term reliability of non-alloyed Pd-Ge-Au ohmic contacts on N-type GaAs. Low resistance contacts (≈1×10−6Ωcm2) were obtained for samples that were sintered in a conventional furnace or flash sintered in a graphite susceptor. Elevated temperature storage (≈4000 hours at 280°C) showed improved contact stability when compared to Ni-AuGe-Ni-Au control samples. Gateless MESFETs subjected to bias temperature stress measurements (Ids ≈300-350mA/mm, 2000–4000 hours at 200°C) showed no significant change in device current. This result is in contrast to devices with Ni-AuGe-Ni-Au ohmic contacts which exhibited a 6–27% decrease in current under the same test conditions. Failure analysis reveals significant electromigration and Au diffusion in the drain fingers of devices with Ni-AuGe-Ni-Au contacts. In contrast, devices with Pd-Ge-Au contacts show no electromigration or Au diffusion in the GaAs.