Instability in In0.7Ga0.3As Quantum-Well MOSFETs with Single-Layer Al2O3 and Bi-Layer Al2O3/HfO2 Gate Stacks Caused by Charge Trapping under Positive Bias Temperature (PBT) Stress
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Please, find the comments attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see attachment on our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper discusses the instability of Vt and Gm in InGaAs QW mosfet under positive bias temperature stress. It is written in a coherent manner and the reviewer finds the results of the paper interesting and may be ultimately worthy of publication. However, the paper in its current format can't be accepted as it lacks major information regarding the device under test.
My specific comments to the reviewers are as follows:
- Please include a schematic cross section of the device.
- The first line of the introduction, the authors mention CMOSFET of III-V channel. Can the authors clarify what do they mean by CMOSFET? I guess they are referring to CMOS Technology. Also since this paper only investigates about n-channel transistors I don't see any obvious reason to talk about CMOS in general. From that point of view I would suggest to rewrite part of the introduction.
- Is the data of Fig. 1 (a) and (b) based on InGaAs transistor or MIM capacitor? If it is based on transistors how did the authors find out Va across the oxide.
- 15 MV/cm electric field across the Al2O3 seems quite high. Can the authors comment the leakage current through the oxide at such high electric field.
- Can the authors present the IdVg, IdVd and IgVg characteristics of the transistors under investigation?
- Also comment on how the findings of this paper would be useful to eradicate the instability in InGaAs QW device or quantify the reliability of such devices.
- Can the authors comment on the energy level of the traps in HfO2 and how the traps with different energy levels contribute to the instability?
Author Response
See attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The presented manuscript covers some special part in the field of MOSFETs preparation and their performance.
In the introduction part, the authors operate with terms but they didn’t explain them. This is very confusing for readers. The introduction can be longer with a higher emphasis on readers. Authors also did very weakly highlighted their contribution to the field and they did not stress the significance of their paper. The reason may be many papers already published with a similar or the same topic.
In the experimental part, any scheme of MOSFET preparation would be very appreciated instead of references to the author's older publications.
The contribution of the authors is missing in the article.
Authors used more than 20 % of self-citations. In this field thousands of articles exist, references can be easily added to the lowering of the self-citation ratio.
For the mentioned reasons, I can’t recommend this article for publication before major revision.
Author Response
See attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors answered all of my comments/questions satisfactorily and revised the manuscript accordingly except for comment 7 of my original review.
Author Response
Please see attachment of our response on reviewer comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors followed the recommendations and comments and they improved the article. But I have still any issues.
- The article will be of higher quality if the authors add any scheme of their MOSFET.
- The authors could add any references to reduce the self-citation ratio.
In that case, I recommend the article for publication.
Author Response
The authors followed the recommendations and comments and they improved the article. But I have still any issues.
The article will be of higher quality if the authors add any scheme of their MOSFET.
The authors could add any references to reduce the self-citation ratio.
In that case, I recommend the article for publication.
Our response:
Thanks for sharp comment. We are modified to scheme of instability explanation in Figure 1 (C) and (d) as a reviewer suggested. We added references related to instability of electrical characteristics under PBT stress condition.
