Suppressing Active-State Instability in GaN Electronics for Extreme Environments

Suppressing Active-State Instability in GaN Electronics for Extreme Environments Gallium nitride is a semiconductor used in power electronics, wireless communication, aerospace and defense platforms because it can operate at high power, high temperature, and high radiation levels. Extreme environments can activate defects inside the material and at interfaces. These defects can trap charge, disturb current flow, shift operating points, and gradually reduce device reliability. State of the art mitigation methods rely on conservative design margins, replacement, thermal annealing, or turning systems off during stressful events. These approaches can be slow, costly, difficult to apply after packaging, or incompatible with systems that must keep operating. This project studies a new way to stabilize gallium nitride electronics using short, high-current electrical pulses that transfer momentum from moving electrons to defect structures while limiting unwanted heating. The long-term vision is an electrically programmable recovery method that can extend the useful life of electronics used in extreme environments. The project will also train graduate and undergraduate students on the intersection of semiconductor devices, reliability physics, materials science, and modeling. Results will be incorporated into engineering courses, senior design projects, instructional videos, and outreach demonstrations that use infrared imaging and microscopy to help K–12 students connect heat, electricity, and reliability of materials. The project will establish the physical basis, operating limits, and predictive modeling framework for electron wind force stimulation in gallium nitride devices. Electron wind force refers to momentum transfer from conducting electrons to defects or defect-associated structures. The central hypothesis is that directed electron momentum can provide a controllable, non-thermal pathway for reducing the participation of metastable electrically active states, distinct from conventional thermal annealing. The research will pursue three integrated objectives. First, standardized electrical stress, thermal stress, and radiation-stress protocols will be combined with multimodal diagnostics to distinguish reversible charge trapping, metastable defect reconfiguration, packaging or self-heating effects, and irreversible degradation. Second, pulse amplitude, width, repetition rate, polarity, duty cycle, and thermal boundary conditions will be systematically varied to identify stimulation protocols that maximize defect suppression while minimizing Joule heating and long-term risks such as electromigration. Third, repeated stress–recovery cycling and pre-treatment of pristine devices will determine the stabilization limits, durability, and operational scenarios in which post-stress electrical recovery adds value beyond dynamic biasing or de-rating. A physics-informed, rate-based state-variable model will couple electrostatics, transport, defect-state evolution, and electron-wind-induced recovery terms. The resulting framework will predict instability onset, recovery kinetics, and lifetime extension from measurable stress histories. By connecting non-equilibrium defect dynamics and device reliability, the project will advance fundamental understanding of defects and traps suppression systems in wide-bandgap semiconductors while creating practical design rules for resilient gallium nitride electronics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.