A study of the high temperature DC performance of nitride high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) on Si(111) and sapphire substrates with different gate lengths is reported. All single gate transistors decrease their drain current (I_D) and transconductance (g_m) from room temperature (RT) up to 350 °C, mainly due to the electron mobility reduction by optical phonon scattering. At RT, HEMTs on Si(111) present higher I_D and g_m than transistors on sapphire, probably related to their lower self‐heating. As devices are heated, these differences tend to disappear, indicating that the substrate thermal conductivity becomes less important. Compact devices have low relative reduction in I_D and g_m values with temperature, since shorter gate lengths lead to higher fields under the gate and lower temperature dependence of the drift velocity.

This work reports on the effects of AlN interlayers embedded into the GaN semi-insulating buffer of AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors, in comparison with standard heterostructures without AlN interlayers. Detailed optical and structural characterization data are presented, along with computer simulation results. The AlN interlayers generate a compressive strain in the GaN topmost layer, which slightly reduces the total polarization field, but most important, it prevents the AlGaN barrier from plastic relaxation. The final result is an enhanced polarization field with respect to standard heterostructures, providing an increased channel carrier density and pinch-off voltage. Electrical characterization confirms the advantages of using AlN interlayers, reaching maximum drain current density and extrinsic transconductance as high as 1.4 A/mm and 266 mS/mm, respectively, for 0.2-μm gate length.

Impedance Spectroscopy has been used to analyse commercial Si photovoltaic solar cells, to obtain information about minority carrier lifetimes, series and parallel resistances, and acceptor impurity densities. Silicon solar cells efficiencies ranging between 17 and 18% from different manufacturers have been analysed obtaining differences mainly in the electron lifetimes and doping densities. Relations between these parameters and DC curves are discussed.

Surface optical (SO) phonons were studied by Raman spectroscopy in GaAs nanowires (NWs) grown by Ga-assisted chemical beam epitaxy on oxidized Si(111) substrates. NW diameters and lengths ranging between 40 and 65 nm and between 0.3 and 1.3 μm, respectively, were observed under different growth conditions. The analysis of the Raman peak shape associated to either longitudinal or surface optical modes gave important information about the crystal quality of grown NWs. Phonon confinement model was used to calculate the density of defects as a function of the NW diameter resulting in values between 0.02 and 0.03 defects/nm, indicating the high uniformity obtained on NWs cross section size during growth. SO mode shows frequency downshifting as NW diameter decreases, this shift being sensitive to NW sidewall oxidation. The wavevector necessary to activate SO phonon was used to estimate the NW facet roughness responsible for SO shift.