IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 13, NO.

5, MAY 2013

1787

Hydrogen-Sensing Properties of a
Pd/AlGaN/GaN-Based Field-Effect Transistor
Under a Nitrogen Ambience
Chi-Shiang Hsu, Huey-Ing Chen, Po-Cheng Chou, Jian-Kai Liou, Chun-Chia Chen, Chung-Fu Chang,
and Wen-Chau Liu, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract The hydrogen-sensing characteristics of a

Pd/AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistor (HFET)
under a nitrogen ambience are studied in this paper. Good
and stable hydrogen-sensing behaviors are obtained over the
operating temperature from 30 C to 250 C. In addition,
HFET shows the significant hydrogen-detecting ability under an
extremely low hydrogen concentration of 10-ppb H2 /N2 . Good
transient responses are also observed even at room temperature.
In addition, a small and nearly constant value of recovery time
(20 s) is acquired when the hydrogen concentration is higher
than 1-ppm H2 /N2 at room temperature. Therefore, the studied
device shows a promise for high-performance, high-temperature
electronics, microsensors, and microelectromechanical system
applications.
Index Terms HFET, hydrogen sensor, nitrogen ambience,
Pd/AlGaN.

I. I NTRODUCTION

T IS well known that fossil fuels have been widely used

in our daily livings over the past years. The extensive use
of fossil fuels produces not only the toxic and air pollution
problems, but also the global warming effect. Thus, it is
important to find new energy sources for the sake of the
effective and sustainable environmental protection. Due to
the features of pollution-free and easy acquisition, hydrogen
is one of the new, clean, and inexhaustible energy sources.
Nowadays, it has been applied in many fields including
industrial fabrication processes, space application, fuel cell
vehicles, and medical treatments [1][3]. However, when the
concentration is greater than 4% in air, hydrogen becomes an
explosive and flammable gas in great danger concerns. It is an
important issue to continuously monitor the hydrogen concentration accurately in a variety of applications. Since Lundstrm
Manuscript received November 19, 2012; revised January 14, 2013;
accepted January 22, 2013. Date of publication February 4, 2013; date of
current version April 2, 2013. This work was supported by the National
Science Council of the Republic of China under Contract NSC 100-2221E-006-044-MY3. The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper
and approving it for publication was Dr. Perena I. Gouma.
C.-S. Hsu, P.-C. Chou, J.-K. Liou, C.-C. Chen, C.-F. Chang, and W.-C. Liu
are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Micro
electronics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan (e-mail:
q18981272@mail.ncku.edu.tw; Q18001276@mail.ncku.edu.tw; q18001250@
mail.ncku.edu.tw; Q18001268@mail.ncku.edu.tw; fs7740329@yahoo.com.tw;
wcliu@mail.ncku.edu.tw).
H.-I. Chen is with the Department of Chemical Engineering, National Cheng
Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan (e-mail: hueying@mail.ncku.edu.tw).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2013.2243430

et al [4]. presented the first metal-oxide semiconductor

(MOS)-type hydrogen sensor in 1975, Si-based gas sensors
have been widely investigated and applied. Yet, due to the relatively small energy gap of 1.1 eV for silicon, this type of sensors is not suitable in operation under harsh atmospheres such
as high-temperature environments. On the contrary, compound
semiconductor-based sensor devices exhibit the advantages of
high sensitivity, small response time, and high temperature
operation capability [5][8]. In the past, numerous chemical
sensors based on compound semiconductor material systems
have revealed good gas sensing characteristics in detecting
H2 , CO, NO2 , CO2 gases, and pH value, etc [9][13].
Recently, III-nitride related materials have been widely studied and applied to fabricate high-performance optical and
electronic devices [14][18]. The AlGaN material has a
wide bandgap, andis suitable for high-temperature operation.
The AlGaN-based devices for a high-temperature operation
have been widelystudied and reported [19], [20]. Due to
its spontaneous and piezoelectric polarization properties, the
AlGaN/GaN heterostructure shows a high-density 2-D electron
gas (2DEG) which induces surface charges on the AlGaN
surface [21]. It is known that a change in the effective
Schottky barrier will result in a change in the threshold voltage
(Vth ). Therefore, the magnitude of 2DEG is modulated by
the change in the effective Schottky barrier height resulting
from the presence of a dipole layer [21]. Moreover, the 2DEG
concentration will be increased as the increasing of hydrogen
concentration. Based on these properties, the AlGaN surface
is very sensitive to the atmospheric environment.In addition,
sensors which are made of AlGaN/GaN heterostructures are
suitable for the integration with other electronic devices, such
as GaN-based HEMT (high electron mobility transistor)and
optoelectronic devices (e.g., LED). Also, the large voltage
signal is feasible for the signal processing of IC chips in
comparison to current signal.In this work, a Pd/AlGaN based
heterostructure field-effect transistor (HFET) hydrogen gas
sensor is fabricated and demonstrated. In order to eliminate the
influence of H2 -O2 reaction [22][25], the studied device is
measured in a nitrogen atmosphere. From experimental results,
the sensor device shows high sensitivity, low detection limit,
and fast response.
II. E XPERIMENT
The epitaxial structure of the studied device was grown
by a metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)

1530-437X/$31.00 2013 IEEE

1788

IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 13, NO. 5, MAY 2013

(a)
Fig. 1. Schematic cross section and top view of surface of the studied
Pd/AlGaN/GaN heterostructure field-effect transistor (HFET)-based hydrogen
sensor. The corresponding energy band diagrams near the gate regime at
equilibrium (solid lines) and under the introduction of hydrogen gas (dashed
lines) under a nitrogen ambience are also illustrated.

system on a c-plane sapphire substrate. The epitaxial structure included a 18 nm-thick undoped AlN buffer layer, a
800 nm-thick undoped AlGaN buffer layer, a 400 nm-thick
undoped GaN buffer layer, a 20 nm-thick GaN active channel
layer with a donor concentration of 4 1017 cm3 , and a
30 nm-thick n-Al0.3 Ga0.7 N Schottky contact layer with the
carrier concentration of 1 1018 cm3 . Hydrochloric acid,
acetone, and deionized water were used to clean the surface
of wafer. Before device fabrication, the mesa isolation was
formed by an inductively-coupled-plasma reactive ion etching
(ICP-RIE) system to etch specific regions on the wafer surface.
Traditional photolithography, vacuum evaporation, and lift-off
techniques were used to form device patterns. The metals
Ti (10 nm)/Al (150 nm) were formed on the surface of
Al0.3 Ga0.7 N layer as Ohmic contacts by vacuum deposition
and annealing at 900 C for 1 min. Then, 20 nm of Pd was
deposited by vacuum evaporation to form the Schottky contact.
The gate dimension was about 1100 m2 . The Schottky contact area was 2.05103 cm2 . The device characteristics were
measured by an HP Agilent 4155C semiconductor characteristic analyzer. Different-concentration hydrogen gases were
introduced for hydrogen sensing measurement. The schematic
cross section and top view of surface of the studied sensing
device are depicted in Fig. 1.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
The measured current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, at 30 C,
of the studied Pd/AlGaN HFET-based hydrogen sensor under
a nitrogen atmosphere are shown in Fig. 2(a). Different
hydrogen concentrations of 500 ppb, 1, 50, 500, and 2000
ppm H2 /N2 are employed. The applied gate-source voltage
(VGS ) is decreased from 0 to 4 V with 1V/step. Clearly,
the studied device shows good transistor characteristics under
nitrogen and hydrogen ambiences. It is known that, under a
nitrogen atmosphere, the influence of oxygen including the

(b)
Fig. 2. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the studied sensor device with
different hydrogen gas concentration under a nitrogen ambience at (a) 30 C
and (b) 250 C.

H2 -O2 reaction [22][25] and oxidation of H2 could be

effectively reduced [26], [27]. The related hydrogen sensing
mechanism could be briefly interpreted as follows. Once a
hydrogen-containing gas travels over the catalytic Pd metal
surface, hydrogen molecules are dissociated and adsorbed on
the Pd metal surface as:
H2 +2Ss 2Had,m

(1)

where Ss is the hydrogen adsorption site on the Pd metal

surface and Had,m the atomic hydrogen adsorbed on a metal
site [26][29]. This hydrogen-induced reaction causes the formation of a dipole layer at Pd/AlGaN interface and reduction
of potential barrier height ( B ), and subsequently increases
the density level of the corresponding 2DEG occurring in the
channel layer of the studied HFET device as shown by the
related energy band diagrams in Fig. 1. This certainly results
in the increase of conduction current. However, the presence of
oxygen molecules (e.g., in air) will occupy part of adsorption
sites and reduce the effective Ss and interfacial hydrogen
coverage. Therefore, the hydrogen adsorption capability, i.e.,
the corresponding magnitude of current modulation, could
be expected to be pronounced under a nitrogen atmosphere.

HSU et al.: HYDROGEN-SENSING PROPERTIES OF A Pd/AlGaN/GaN-BASED FET

Fig. 2(b) shows corresponding I-V characteristics of the studied hydrogen sensor device at 250 C. It is known that the
temperature is an important factor to affect hydrogen sensing properties. At higher temperature, hydrogen atoms may
gain higher energy to facilitate the surface chemical reaction.
Yet, the sticking coefficient of hydrogen gas is decreased with
increasing the temperature, which results in lower hydrogen
coverage at the Pd/AlGaN interface. Therefore, the hydrogen
atoms action and related hydrogen sensing performance will
be substantially influenced by the competition of these two
mechanisms mentioned above. As seen in Fig. 2, the drain current is increased with increasing the hydrogen concentration.
Even at a low hydrogen concentration of 500 ppb H2 /N2 and
high temperature environment, the studied device still exhibits
good HFET and hydrogen sensing performance. The hydrogen
sensing current is defined as the deviation value between the
drain saturation current (I D ) of the studied device as exposed
to hydrogen-containing gas and pure nitrogen ambience.
The drain saturation current variation (I D ) could be defined
as:
I D = I D,H2 I D,2

(a)

(2)

where I D,H 2 and I D,N2 are drain saturation currents measured in hydrogen-contained and nitrogen ambiences, respectively. Clearly, larger I D values yield better hydrogen sensing
behaviors.
Figs. 3(a) and 3(b) show the drain saturation current variation (I D ) as a function of gate-source voltage VGS (from
0 to 6 V) under the introduction of different-concentration
hydrogen gases. Enlarged views of the corresponding characteristics under VGS -4.0 V are illustrated in insets of
Figs. 3 (a) and 3 (b). Clearly, the I D is increased with increasing the hydrogen concentration in a nitrogen ambience. Yet,
the increasing magnitude goes to a quasi-saturated level once
the hydrogen concentration is higher than 500 ppm H2 /N2 . The
peak I D values are 32 (40) and 2(6) mA/mm at 30 C (250 C)
under the introduction of 2000 ppm and 500 ppb H2 /N2
gases, respectively. Thus good hydrogen sensing performance
is observed even at a higher operating temperature (250 C).
The threshold voltage variation (Vth ) as a function of
hydrogen concentration are shown in Fig. 4. The drain-source
voltage is fixed at VDS = 7 V. The threshold voltage variation
Vth are 0.13 (0.01), 0.16 (0.09), 0.46 (0.77), 0.43 (1.28), and
0.44 (1.27) V upon exposing to 0.5, 1, 50, 500, and 2000
ppm H2 /N2 gases, respectively, at 30 C (250 C). Clearly, the
magnitude of Vth is increased with increasing to the hydrogen
concentration. The Vth values of the studied device at 250 C
are higher than those at 30 C. Thus, good hydrogen sensing
performance is observed at a higher operating temperature
(250 C), as mentioned above.
These properties demonstrate the benefit of the studied
device for high-temperature hydrogen sensing under a nitrogen
atmosphere.
The hydrogen sensing behaviors could be estimated by a
drain current sensitivity S|(H2 N2 ) as [30]:
I D,H 2 I D,N2
S|(H2 N2 ) =
(A/mm ppm H2 /N2 )
C H2

1789

(3)

(b)
Fig. 3.
Drain saturation current variation I D as a function of gatesource voltage VGS with different hydrogen concentrations at (a) 30 C and
(b) 250 C under nitrogen ambience.

Fig. 4. Threshold voltage variation Vth versus hydrogen concentration at

30 C and 250 C under a nitrogen ambience.

where CH2 is the introduced hydrogen concentration. The

S|(H2 N2 ) as a function of hydrogen concentration at different
temperatures is revealed in Fig. 5.

1790

Fig. 5. Relationship between drain current sensitivity S(H2 /N2 ) and hydrogen
concentration at different temperatures.

The applied biases are kept at VDS = 5.0 V and VGS = 0 V.

Experimentally, high sensitivities of 5652, 21026, and 15082
A/mm-ppm H2 /N2 are obtained under a 1 ppm H2 /N2 gas at
30, 100, and 250 C, respectively. Also, sensitivities at 30 C
of the studied device are 5652, 467.7, 49.18, and 11.98
A/mm-ppm in 1, 50, 500, and 2000 ppm H2 /N2 gases,
respectively. Under a nitrogen ambience, the influence of
oxygen including the H2 -O2 reaction and oxidation of H2
could be effectively reduced. These results are superior
to previously reported Pd/GaAs FET sensor [26]. Moreover, the variation of sensitivity S|(H2 N2 ) with temperature
(30250 C) is insignificant. This demonstrates again the
advantages of high temperature operation capability for the
studied device. The hydrogen transient responses are displayed
in Fig. 6.
The drain-source voltage and gate-source voltage are kept
at VDS = 5 V and VGS = 0 V. The hydrogen concentrations of
2000, 500, 100, 50, 1, and 0.5 ppm H2 /N2 are introduced to
hydrogen sensing measurement. Clearly, when a hydrogen gas
is introduced, the drain current I D is rapidly increased. On the
other hand, when the hydrogen gas is removed and the nitrogen
gas is introduced, the I D is quickly decreased. Good transient
responses are found even at a lower temperature of 30 C, as
shown in Fig. 6. In addition, an enlarged view of the corresponding characteristics under the introduced extremely low
hydrogen concentrations of 10 and 100 ppb H2 /N2 are shown
in the inset of Fig. 6. When lower hydrogen concentrations
of 10 and 100 ppb H2 /N2 are introduced, remarkable current
variations of 1.2 and 2.5 mA/mm are found, respectively. Thus,
the studied device could detect an extremely low concentration
of hydrogen gas ( 10 ppb H2 /N2 ) under a nitrogen ambience.
The response time is strongly dependent on the effective
hydrogen coverage. Because the rate constant of the hydrogen
adsorption reaction is proportional to the hydrogen coverage,
at an extremely low hydrogen-concentration gas, the corresponding response time is increased [7]. The experimental
results indicate that the device can detect H2 in concentrations

IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 13, NO. 5, MAY 2013

Fig. 6. Transient response curves upon the introduction and removal of different hydrogen gases under a nitrogen ambience at 30 C. Inset: corresponding
characteristics under the introduced extremely low concentration hydrogen
gases (10 and 100 ppb H2 /N2 ).

as low as 10 ppb H2 /N2 in the absence of the H2 -O2 reaction.

Previously, the characteristics of Sc2 O3 /AlGaN/GaN MOS
diodes as hydrogen gas sensors are reported at room
temperature [31]. In a nitrogen ambience, the drain current
(baseline current) about 6 mA was obtained. When a 10%
H2 /N2 gas was introduced, the drain current is increased from
6 to 7.15 mA. The current variation is about 1.15 mA. Yet, the
studied Pd/AlGaN/GaN HFET shows the larger drain current
variation of 3.3 mA in a 2000 ppm H2 /N2 gas at 30 C.
In addition, a Pt/AlGaN/GaN Schottky diode-type hydrogen
sensor for high temperature operation is reported by Song
et al [32], [33]. The sensor sensitivity is about 0.06 upon
exposing to a 5% H2 /N2 gas at 200 C. For our device,
the sensitivity is 0.158 in a 2000 ppm H2 /N2 gas at 30 C.
In the previous work [33] the Pt catalytic metal was employed.
It is known that, from previous report [34] the Pd-based
device shows better sensitivity performance than Pt-based
ones. Therefore, the studied device shows a significantly
improved sensitivity as compared with other devices. In brief,
the studied hydrogen sensor shows better hydrogen responses
at room temperature.
Fig. 7 shows the response and recovery time constants a
and b [30] with respect to the hydrogen concentration at 30 C
under a nitrogen ambience. The a and b are decreased with
the increase of hydrogen concentration. Their values at the
condition of 0.5 (2000) ppm H2 /N2 gas are found to be 1103
(13.8) and 37 (20) seconds, respectively. Another important
feature and advantage of this device is its small and nearly
constant b values especially when the hydrogen concentration
is higher than 1 ppm H2 /N2 (b 20 s). This phenomenon
is different from that found in a Pd/GaAs FET sensor [26]
More studies need to be performed to clarify the associated
mechanisms.
Furthermore, note thatthe formation of a passivation layer
on the AlGaN (GaN) surface could enhance the device properties [35][37] Although the studied sensor devicewith bare

HSU et al.: HYDROGEN-SENSING PROPERTIES OF A Pd/AlGaN/GaN-BASED FET

Fig. 7. Response time constant a and recovery time constant b as a function

of hydrogen concentration, at 30 C.

AlGaN surface exhibits good hydrogen sensing performance,

the decay property may be expected after long-time operation.
Therefore, a passivated-surface structure needs further investigation in the future work.
IV. C ONCLUSION
In conclusion, the hydrogen sensing characteristics under a
nitrogen ambience for theproposed Pd/AlGaN HFET device
are demonstrated and studied. Good and stable hydrogen
sensing properties are obtained over the operating temperature
from 30 C to 250 C. In addition, this device exhibits
good sensing performance under an extremely low hydrogen
concentration ambience ( 10 ppb H2 /N2 ). Good transient
response is also found even at room temperature. The studied device shows the superior hydrogen detection sensitivity
to the previous reported Pd/GaAs-based FETs. An advantage of small and nearly constant recovery time (b 20
s) is obtained for the hydrogen concentration higher than
1 ppm H2 /N2 . Therefore, the studied hydrogen-sensing
device is suitablefor operating under a nitrogen ambience. Furthermore, this device shows the promise for highperformance, high-temperature electronics, micro sensors, and
micro electro-mechanical system (MEMS) applications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the National Science Council of the Republic of China under Contract NSC
100-2221-E-006-044-MY3.
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Huey-Ing Chen received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D.

degrees from Cheng Kung University (NCKU),
Tainan, Taiwan, in 1979, 1981, and 1994, respectively, all in chemical engineering.
She joined the Faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering, NCKU, as a Professor in 2003. Her
current research interests include hydrogen permselective Pd-based membranes, hydrogen sensors, gas
separations, and nanoparticles.

Chi-Shiang Hsu received the B.S. and M.S. degrees

in electrical engineering and CSIE from CTU and
CYUT, in 2007 and 2009, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Microelectronics and Department of Electrical Engineering,
National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
His current research interests include semiconductor gas sensors.

Chung-Fu Chang received the B.S. degree in

electrical engineering from Feng-Chia University,
Taichung, Taiwan, in 2007. He is currently pursuing
the M.S. degree at the Institute of Microelectronics
and Department of Electrical Engineering, National
Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
His current research interests include widebandgap.

Po-Cheng Chou received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from ISU, 2010, where he is
currently pursuing the M.S. degree at the Institute of
Microelectronics and Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan,
Taiwan.
His current research interests include semiconductor gas sensors.

Jian-Kai Liou received the B.S. degree in electrical

engineering from NKNU, in 2010. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering,
National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
His current research interests include the IIIV
compound LED.

Chun-Chia Chen received the B.S. degree in

electrical engineering from Feng-Chia University,
Taichung, Taiwan, in 2008. He is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Microelectronics and the Department of Electrical Engineering,
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
His current research interests include IIIV heterostructure FET.

HSU et al.: HYDROGEN-SENSING PROPERTIES OF A Pd/AlGaN/GaN-BASED FET

Wen-Chau Liu (A91M93SM02) received the

B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from National Cheng-Kung University (NCKU),
Tainan, Taiwan, in 1979, 1981, and 1986, respectively.
He was with the Faculty at the Department of
Electrical Engineering, National Cheng-Kung University, as an Instructor and an Associate Professor
in 1983, 1986, and 1992, respectively. Since 2002,
he has been a Distinguished Professor with the same
department, and since 2005, he has been an Associate Chair with the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Director of
the Institute of Microelectronics, NCKU. His research and teaching concern
semiconductor device physics, analysis, and modeling. He has authored or
co-authored more than 300 journal papers. He holds 54 patents in the
semiconductor field. His current research interests include IIIV heterostructure and superlattice devices including induced base transistor, superlatticegate and heterostructure buffer layer FETs, camel structure gate FET,
sawtooth-doping-superlatticed devices, heterostructure-emitter bipolar transistor, superlattice-emitter resonant-tunneling bipolar transistor, heterostructureemitter and heterostructure-base transistor, superlatticed negative-differentialresistance (NDR) device, quantum-well -doped NDR devices, metal-insulatorsemiconductor like multiple switching devices, low-dimensional quantum
electron devices, deep submicrometer meter devices and technologies, and
high-sensitivity semiconductor gas sensors.
Dr. Liu has received the technical expert licenses of ROC in the electrical
and electronics in 1979 and 1982, respectively. He is a member of Phi Tau
Phi and the IEEE Electron Devices Society.

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