Kavli Affiliate: Austin Minnich
| Summary:
The InP high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) is indispensable for low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in radio astronomy and quantum computing. The composition of the $mathrmIn_xGa_1-xAs$ channel in InP HEMT is known to influence the LNA noise performance. However, the various physical mechanisms responsible for noise generation are not fully characterized and understood. Here, we investigate the $mathrmIn_xGa_1-xAs$ channel noise from 4 K to 300 K for 100-nm gate-length InP HEMTs with channel indium content of 53%, 60% and 70%. Channel noise was quantified by extracting the equivalent drain noise temperature $mathitT_d$ using both on-wafer and LNA-based measurements, covering 40-300 K and 4-40 K, respectively. The 60% indium channel InP HEMT exhibited the lowest channel noise across the full temperature range. The $mathitT_d$ extracted from on-wafer characterization was found to obey a parabolic temperature dependence which predicted the $mathitT_d$ at 4 K for all InP HEMTs in good agreement with LNA-based measurements. By expressing the channel noise as the sum of one thermal and one excess noise term, it was found that the former increased linearly with ambient temperature and dominated at 300 K. The channel noise at 4 K was determined by the excess noise term and exhibited a non-monotonic dependence on the channel indium content in the InP HEMT. The results suggest that the excess noise in the InP HEMT originates not only from temperature-independent shot noise but also from impact ionization and real-space transfer noise.
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