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Hydrogen-Sensitive Characteristics of a Novel Pd/InP MOS Schottky Diode Hydrogen Sensor

Wen-Chau Liu, Member, IEEE, Hsi-Jen Pan, Huey-Ing Chen, Kun-Wei Lin, Shiou-Ying Cheng, Member, IEEE, and Kuo-Hui Yu

AbstractSteady-state and transient hydrogen-sensing characteristics of a novel Pd/InP metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) Schottky diode under atmospheric conditions are presented and studied. In presence of oxide layer, the significant increase of barrier height improves the hydrogen sensitivity even at lower operating temperatures. Even at a very low hydrogen concentration environment, e.g., 15 ppm H2 in air, a significant response is obtained. Two effects, i.e., the removal of Fermi-level pinning caused by the donor level in the oxide and the reduction of Pd metal work function dominate the hydrogen sensing mechanism. Furthermore, the reaction kinetics incorporating the water formation upon hydrogen adsorption is investigated. The initial heat of adsorption for the Pd/oxide interface is estimated to be 0.42 eV/hydrogen atom. The coverage dependent heat of adsorption plays an important role in hydrogen response under steady-state conditions. In accordance with the Temkin isotherm behavior, the theoretical prediction of interface coverage agrees well with the experimental results over more than three decades of hydrogen partial pressure. Index TermsBarrier height, Fermi-level pinning, hydrogen response, hydrogen sensors, Schottky diode.

I. INTRODUCTION N the field of solid-state sensors, highly sensitive devices based on the principles of flow pressure or chemical reaction are widely developed in detecting and monitoring the environment in industrial processes and medical installations [1], [2]. Among these, metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structures with the catalytic Pd metal have attracted extensive interests in the implementation of hydrogen sensors and investigation of hydrogen adsorption properties [3][7]. For different types of familiar Pd/SiO /Si MOS devices, e.g., capacitors, field effect devices, or Schottky diodes, the hydrogen detection mainly depends on the modification in electric properties resulting from the presence of charged hydrogen atoms at the Pd/SiO interface. However, as the oxide thickness is reduced, especially for Schottky diode applications, the possibility of
Manuscript received November 27, 2000; revised March 13, 2001. This work was supported in part by the National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C., under Contract NSC 89-2215-E-006-029. The review of this paper was arranged by Editor K. Najafi. W.-C. Liu, H.-J. Pan, and K.-H. Yu are with the Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C. (e-mail: wcliu@mail.ncku.edu.tw). H.-I. Chen is with the Department of Chemical Engineer, National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C. K.-W. Lin is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chien Kuo Institute of Technology, Changhua, Taiwan, R.O.C. S.-Y. Cheng is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Oriental Institute of Technology, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C. Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9383(01)06910-6.

directed reaction between Pd and Si is apparently increased. This leads to a loss of hydrogen response due to the significant Fermi-level pinning caused by the interfacial formation of Pd-silicide [4]. In addition, during the oxidization process, the surface is easily contaminated to degrade the quality of oxide layer. To achieve more hydrogen-sensitive Schottky junctions, the Schottky diodes based on III-V compound semiconductors with metal work function dependent barrier heights are widely studied [8][11]. Yousuf et al. demonstrated essentially high hydrogen response in the currentvoltage ( ) characteristics of Pd/InP Schottky diode [12]. Although the enormous current variation is observed, the low barrier height associated with the high defect state density at the Pd/InP interface severely restricts the allowable variation in barrier height. In particular, the device performances as well as the sensing applications at higher temperature are therefore deteriorated by considering the high leakage current density. In this work, we present the planar fabrication and characterization of a highly hydrogen-sensitive Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode. In presence of the shallow donor level at the Pd/oxide interface by introducing a thin thermal oxide layer, the experimental results indicate an enhanced barrier height as high as 0.63 eV is achieved [13]. Upon exposure to hydrogen, the hydrogen responses of current variation with different temperatures and hydrogen concentrations are measured under steady state and transient conditions. In addition, the reaction kinetics of the hydrogen response is established to study the initial heat of adsorption by the correlation between hydrogen pressure and interface coverage [14]. II. EXPERIMENTS The studied Pd/InP MOS Schottky diodes were grown on (100)-oriented semi-insulating (SI) InP substrates by a metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) system. The epitaxial structure consisted of a 5000 undoped InP buffer n-type InP active layer with a Si-doped layer and a 3000 cm . After the epitaxy process, concentration of conventional photolithography, thermal evaporation, and lift-off techniques were employed in the device fabrication process. The ohmic contacts were made by using AuGe alloy on the surface of n-InP active layer with a following annealing in N gas at 450 C for 2 min. Subsequently, the thermal oxidation process was carried out in flowing dry O at 360 C for 25 min. For comparison, some substrates without the thermally oxidized surfaces were chemically etched with a solution consisting of 5:1:1 and then a solution HF:H 1:1 H SO :H O :H

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Fig. 1. AES depth profiles of the studied Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode. (a)

and immediately put into the vacuumed chamber prior to Schottky contact formation. The chemically etched substrates prepared by removing the native oxide layers were utilized to form the referred Pd/InP MS junctions. Finally, the Schottky contacts were made on the surface of InP active layer by using Pd cm metal. The sensitive area of Schottky contact was and the whole device was defined by a mesa etching process with a diluted HCl solution. The steady-state and transient response measurements were performed in a stainless steel reaction chamber connected to a gas flow tube with a regulating valve. Different concentrations of hydrogen gas in air of 15, 48, 97, 202, 537, and 1010 ppm were used in this study, respectively. The chamber was maintained under atmospheric conditions and the continuous and stable flowing hydrogen/air mixture gas of 500 sccm was introduced into the chamber. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Fig. 1 shows the sputter Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth profiles of a studied Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode. Clearly, an abrupt interface with a uniform composition is observed. Also, an oxygen signal is detected at the Pd metal surface and interface. Based on the work proposed by Wager and Wilmsen, the chemical composition of this thermally grown oxide is approximately 7075% In O and 2530% P O [15]. The estimated range of 4555 of oxide thickness from the sputtering rate in the AES measurements is in good consistence of the predicted result of 56.8 from the empirical equation. Fig. 2(a) and (b) illustrate the currentvoltage curves of the Pd/InP MOS and MS Schottky diodes measured under atmospheric conditions with different hydrogen concentrations at 20 C, respectively. With increasing hydrogen concentration, the forward and reverse currents in both devices are substantially raised and the change exhibits a highly sensitive linearity. To our knowledge, the sensitivity limit at least 15 ppm from a direct observation is the lowest value at the low temperature of 20 C under atmospheric conditions. For the Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode, as shown in Fig. 2(a), the sensitivity in the forward and reverse currents from air (the reference) to 1010 ppm hydrogen/air environ-

(b) Fig. 2. Measured (I V ) characteristics of the (a) Pd/InP MOS and (b) Pd/InP MS Schottky diodes at T = 20 C under atmospheric condition with different hydrogen concentrations.

ment can reach four orders of magnitude at the applied biases V. The ideality factor in air indicating a typical of 0.5 and value of 1.28 supports a slight tunneling effect in presence of an interfacial oxide layer. However, a sensitivity smaller by 2 orders of magnitude is found for the Pd/InP MS Schottky diode as shown in Fig. 2(b). This difference can be mainly attributed to a remarkable reduction of leakage current in air resulting from the improved interface properties for the Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode. The improvement is interpreted in Fig. 3 which presents as a function of hydrogen concentration the barrier height for the Pd/InP MOS and MS Schottky diodes. In both cases, the thermionic emission transport plays a dominant role in the current conduction mechanism. On the basis of thermionic emission (TE) theory, the barrier height for the MOS Schottky diode

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Fig. 3. Barrier height as a function of hydrogen concentration in air for the Pd/InP MOS and MS Schottky diodes. The inset shows the plot of ln(I =T ) versus 1=T for both devices in air.

in air is estimated to be 0.63 eV from the saturation current in the forward bias region and a much lower value of 0.42 eV is obtained for the MS junction. These values are consistent with the estimated results from the Richardson plots as shown in the inset of Fig. 3. Within the hydrogen concentration range measured, the relatively substantial reduction in barrier height of the Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode is found as compared with the Pd/InP MS Schottky diode with the increase of hydrogen concentration. The enhancement of 0.21 eV in barrier height for the MOS Schottky diode provides a wider regime of barrier height modulation at lower hydrogen concentrations. Based on previous experimental evidence, it has been proposed that the amphoteric native defects including the donor and accept levels are responsible for the interface Fermi-level pinning at the Pd-InP MS interface [15]. The pinning position of Fermi-level falling in the range of 0.30.55 eV below the conduction band minimum (CBM) limits the barrier height modulation and hence the hydrogen sensitivity. Fig. 4(a) and (b) depict the schematic energy band diagrams for the Pd/InP MOS structure in air and upon exposure to hydrogen, respectively. It is well known that the distinct pinning by oxygen on InP surface can be induced by a high density shallow donor states in the oxide instead of that by the amphoteric native defects [16], [17]. The ideal barrier height of 0.74 eV in Schottky limit case can be determined by the difference between the work function of Pd (5.12 eV) and the electron affinity of InP (4.38 eV) [18]. is assoFrom the experimental results, the barrier height ciated with the movement of the Fermi-level position induced by the donor level in the oxide. As shown in Fig. 4(a), the position of the donor level is supposed to locate at 0.1 eV below the CBM, which coincides with the observation of pinning behavior according to the unified defect model [16], [17]. Upon hydrogen adsorption, the hydrogen molecules are dissolved into hydrogen atoms by the catalytic property of Pd metal. The hydrogen atoms penetrate the Pd metal with a high diffusion coefficient and form

a dipole layer at the Pd-oxide interface. In Fig. 4(b), the polarization of the dipole layer either neutralizes the donor level to release the pinning effect or to cause the reversible reduction of barrier height in the H environment. Meanwhile, the decrease of Pd effective work function is due to the field across the Pd/oxide interface. Although the interface coverage properties are not well understood, it is supposed that a high coverage, i.e., the strong capability of filling the adsorption sites on the interface, is crucial for the significant hydrogen sensitivity. Fig. 5 shows the influence of hydrogen concentration on the at the temperatures change in the current and of 50 C and 80 C under several forward bias conditions. are measured currents under hydrogen environment and air, at low hydrogen respectively. At 50 C, the rapid increase in concentrations followed by a saturation trend at high concentrations is observed similar to the results reported for Si, SiC, and GaAs based hydrogen sensors [11], [19]. At the higher temperature of 80 C, however, a smaller change in the forward current anomalous to those reported devices can be explained as follows. At the large forward bias, the barrier-related transport processes including both the TE transport and the thermionic field emission (TFE) transport completely dominate the forward current change with temperature. As the temperature is elevated, the TE transport is increasingly dominant and the effect of oxide-limited barrier height modulation becomes weakened as compared to the TFE transport. On the contrary, at lower temperatures, the enhanced effect of barrier height modulation of TFE transport can lead to a larger change in the forward current. Fig. 6 shows the transient response curves upon the introduction and removal of 202 ppm hydrogen/air gas at several temperatures under the forward bias of 0.3 V. The adsorption time constant , defined as the time to of the saturation value of , is an important indication reach of response rate upon adsorption. As shown in the inset table of Fig. 6, the value of is decreased from 34 to 6 s as the temperature is elevated from 50 C to 110 C. The high initial rate of change around 133 A/s for such small amount of in current hydrogen detection is obtained even at 50 C while increased to 253 A/s at 100 C. The positive temperature dependence of adsorption reaction rate can be attributed to the increased hydrogen dissociation and diffusion coefficients. In addition, it is believed that the reduction of hydrogen adsorption sites blocked by oxygen gives a significant contribution. During the hydrogen desorption process, the additional hydroxyl and water production is involved in the reaction when upon exposure to air. The reaction of water formation appears to be the rate-limiting factor and further accelerates the recovery response especially at high temperature. In general, since hydrogen sensors are usually employed under atmospheric conditions, the influence of water formation resulting from hydrogen-oxygen reaction must be considered in the kinetic studies. In addition to the qualitative discussion above, the hydrogen adsorption properties related to the presence of oxygen is also required to be quantitatively investigated for the Pd/InP MOS interface. According to the Langmuir form of response proposed by Lundstrm et al., the coverage of hydrogen at the interface can be put in the form [20], [21] (1)

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Fig. 4.

Schematic energy band diagram for the Pd/InP MOS structure (a) in air and (b) upon exposure to hydrogen.

Fig. 5. Change in the current I as a function of hydrogen concentration in air at T and 80 C under various forward biases of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 V.

= 50

Fig. 6. Transient response curves upon the introduction and removal of 202 ppm H /air gas at various temperatures under the fixed forward bias of 0.3 V.

induced by hydrogen adsorption can be assumed to be proportional to as [11] (2) is the maximum change in barrier height. Substiwhere tuting (2) into (1) and applying the formula of saturation current give [11], [19], [23] (3)

where is a rate constant and and are the partial pressure of hydrogen and oxygen, respectively. The reaction order approaches unity for temperatures above 75 C and decreases to as a one-half for lower temperatures. Fig. 7 shows under atmospheric conditions at the three function of temperatures of 50, 80, and 110 C. The linear dependence in this plot clarifies that the results coincide with the reported kinetic reaction of Pd supporting SiO interface [22]. Therefore, under steady-state conditions, the change in barrier height

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Fig. 7. The  =(1  ) as a function of (P ) under atmospheric conditions at T = 50; 80, and 110 C. The inset illustrates the plot of 1= ln(I =I ) versus (P ) at three temperatures.

Fig. 8. Experimental and modeled interface coverage as a function of hydrogen pressure for the Pd/InP MOS structure at T = 80 and 110 C. The inset shows the schematic potential energy diagram of the Pd/InP MOS system.

represents the saturation current in air and and the corresponding and maximum saturation currents in hydrogen environment, respectively. The plot of against at the three temperatures are shown in the , the value of inset of Fig. 7. From the intercept of can be calculated by

where

heat of adsorption varies linearly with the coverage Pd/oxide interface and can be described as [14]

at the

(6) where is a proportionality constant. From the schematic potential energy diagram in the inset, the hydrogen interface state seems to approach equilibrium with the hydrogen surface state with respect to the strong dependence of hydrogen coverage at the interface and the surface. Once becomes high enough so is decreased to , a substantial accumulation of hythat drogen in the Pd bulk takes place. This results in an upper interface coverage limit due to the nonsensitive formation of Pd-hydride. Therefore, the maximum variation in heat of adsorption over the sensitiverangecanbeobtainedfromthedifferencebetween and values ( eV) which coincides with the extracted value of 0.31 eV. By using the value of eV/atom in this model, the theoretical prediction is in good agreement with the experimental data. The saturation of sensitivity to hydrogen takes place as the value of of 0.75 corresponding to the heat of adsorption at the interface of 0.1 eV is achieved. Thus, the hydrogen sensing range where the value of varies under the atmospheric conditions can extend over at least three decades of hydrogen partial pressure. From the prediction, furthermore, the sensitivity limit of the hydrogen pressure can be brought down to , respectively. less than IV. CONCLUSION We have fabricated and presented a novel Pd/InP MOS Schottky diode with the high hydrogen sensitivity and linear hydrogen response. It is found that at the Pd/oxide interface, the specific donor level replaces the amphoteric native defects to cause the interface Fermi-level pinning. This leads to an improved barrier height as high as 0.63 eV that provides the wider

(4) is the thermal voltage. For all these cases, the consiswhere eV is obtained as referred to the tent value of saturated interface with adsorption sites fully occupied by the hydrogen atoms. Furthermore, the rate constant can be computed from the slope of the curves in the inset of Fig. 7 and the initial heat of 0.42 eV/atom can be of adsorption per hydrogen atom approximately estimated via [11]

(5) Torr . This value of is smaller where than that of 0.86 eV/atom for the Pd/SiO interface but larger eV [14], [24]. than the adsorption energy of Pd bulk Fig. 8 shows the experimental and modeled hydrogen adsorption isotherms for the Pd/InP MOS structure at high temperatures of 80 C and 110 C. The temperature effect is apparently observed from the logarithmic dependence of the experimental data of coverage on hydrogen partial pressure. As the temperature is increased to 110 C, is shifted toward higher hydrogen pressures. Fogelberg et al. presented the model well describing the behavior of interface coverage for the Pd-MOS device using the rate equations of H -O reaction under steady-state conditions [25]. According to Temkin isotherm of hydrogen adsorption, the

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range of barrier height lowing and hence the high hydrogen sensitivity as compared with the conventional metal-semiconductor interface. Even at a very low hydrogen concentration (15 ppm H in air) environment, a substantial response to H is observed. At 20 C, the sensitivity in both forward and reverse currents can approach four orders of magnitude for 1010 ppm hydrogen under atmospheric conditions. In addition, even at the lower temperatures, the fast response rate is evaluated by and the initial rate of change the adsorption time constant . Through kinetic studies, the initial heat of adsorption in at the interface of 0.42 eV/atom is supported by the maximum variation in barrier height of 0.31 eV upon hydrogen adsorption. The good agreement between the experimental results and the theoretical prediction confirms the isotherms of Temkin type. From the prediction, the wide hydrogen sensing range over more than three decades of hydrogen partial pressure can be attributed to the correlation between the interface coverage and the heat of adsorption at the interface.

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[1] C. Christofides and A. Mandelis, Solid-state sensors for trace hydrogen gas detection, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 68, pp. 130, 1990. [2] S. T. Cho, K. Najafi, C. E. Lowman, and K. D. Wise, An ultra sensitive silicon pressure-based microflow sensor, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. 39, pp. 825835, Apr. 1992. [3] K. I. Lundstrm, M. S. Shivaraman, and C. M. Svensson, A hydrogen-sensitive Pd-gate MOS transistor, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 46, pp. 38763881, 1975. [4] P. F. Ruths, S. Ashok, S. J. Fonash, and J. M. Ruths, A study of Pd/Si MIS Schottky barrier diode hydrogen detector, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices, vol. ED-28, pp. 10031009, Sept. 1981. [5] T. L. Poteat and B. Lalevic, Pd-MOS hydrogen and hydrocarbon sensor device, IEEE Electron Device Lett., vol. EDL-2, pp. 3234, Apr. 1981. [6] Y. K. Fang, S. B. Hwang, C. Y. Lin, and C. C. Lee, Trench Pd/Si metal-oxide-semiconductor Schottky barrier diode for a high sensitivity hydrogen gas sensor, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 57, pp. 26862688, 1990. [7] Y. Morita, K. I. Nakamura, and C. Kim, Langmuir analysis on hydrogen gas response of palladium-gate FET, Sens. Actuators B, vol. 33, pp. 9699, 1996. [8] T. L. Poteat, B. Lalevic, B. Kuliyev, M. Yousuf, and M. Chen, MOS and Schottky diode gas sensors using transition metal electrodes, J. Electron. Mater., vol. 12, pp. 181214, 1983. [9] H. Y. Nie and Y. Mammichi, Pd-on-GaAs Schottky contact: Its barrier height and response to hydrogen, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., vol. 30, pp. 906913, 1991. [10] L. M. Lechuga, A. Calle, D. Golmayo, and F. Briones, Different catalytic metals (Pt, Pd and Ir) for GaAs Schottky barrier sensors, Sens. Actuators B, vol. 7, pp. 614618, 1991. [11] W. P. Kang and Y. Grbz, Comparison and analysis of Pd- and Pt-GaAs Schottky diodes for hydrogen detection, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 75, pp. 81758181, 1994. [12] M. Yousuf, B. Kuliyev, and B. Lalevic, Pd-InP Schottky diode hydrogen sensors, Solid-State Electron., vol. 25, pp. 753758, 1982. [13] A. A. Iliadis, Nearly ideal enhanced barrier height Schottky contacts to n-InP for MESFET applications, Electron. Lett., vol. 25, pp. 572574, 1989. [14] M. Eriksson, I. I. Lundstrm, and L. G. Ekedahl, A model of the Temkin isotherm behavior for hydrogen adsorption at Pd-SiO interfaces, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 82, pp. 31433146, 1997. [15] J. F. Wager and C. W. Wilmsen, Thermal oxidation of InP, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 51, pp. 812814, 1980. [16] N. Newman, W. E. Spicer, T. Kendelewicz, and I. Lindau, On the Fermi level pinning behavior of metal/III-V semiconductor interfaces, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B, vol. 4, pp. 931938, 1986.

[17] K. A. Bertness, T. Kendelewicz, R. S. List, M. D. Williams, I. Lindau, and W. E. Spicer, Fermi level pinning during oxidation of atomically clean n-InP (110), J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A, vol. 4, pp. 14241426, 1986. [18] R. L. Van Meirhaeghe, W. H. Laflere, and F. Cardon, Influence of defect passivation by hydrogen on the Schottky barrier height of GaAs and InP contacts, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 76, pp. 403406, 1994. [19] C. K. Kim, J. H. Lee, Y. H. Lee, N. I. Cho, D. J. Kim, and W. P. Kang, Hydrogen sensing characteristics of Pd-SiC Schottky diode operating at high temperature, J. Electron. Mater., vol. 28, pp. 202205, 1999. [20] I. Lundstrm, S. Shivaraman, C. Svensson, and L. Lundkvist, A hydrogen-sensitive MOS field effect transistor, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 26, pp. 5557, 1975. [21] I. Lundstrm and L. G. Petersson, Chemical sensors with catalytic metal gates, J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A, vol. 14, pp. 15391545, 1996. [22] I. Lundstrm, Hydrogen sensitive MOS-structures part 1: Principles and applications, Sens. Actuators, vol. 1, pp. 403426, 1981. [23] R. C. Hughes, W. K. Schubert, T. E. Zipperian, J. L. Rodriguez, and T. A. Plut, Thin-film palladium and silver alloys and layers for metal-insulator-semiconductor sensors, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 62, pp. 10741082, 1987. [24] M. Johansson, I. Lundstrm, and L. G. Ekedahl, Bridging the pressure gap for palladium metal-insulator-semiconductor hydrogen sensors in oxygen containing enviroments, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 84, pp. 4451, 1998. [25] J. Fogelberg and L. G. Petersson, Kinetic modeling of the H -O reaction on Pd and its influence on the hydrogen response of a hydrogen sensitive Pd metal-oxide-semiconductor device, Surf. Sci., vol. 350, pp. 91102, 1996.

Wen-Chau Liu (A91M93) was born in Yurn-Lin Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C., on June, 1957. He received the B.S.E., M.S.E., and Ph.D. degrees from National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 1979, 1981, and 1986, respectively, all in electrical engineering. He has passed the Higher Civil Service examinations and has obtained the technical expert licenses of R.O.C. in the electrical and electronic fields, in 1979 and 1982, respectively. He joined the faculty at National Cheng-Kung University as an Instructor and an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, in 1983 and 1986, respectively. Since 1992, he has been a Professor in the same department. His research and teaching concern semiconductor device physics, analysis, and modeling. His research presently focuses on III-V heterostructure and superlattice devices including induced base transistor (IBT), superlattice-gate and heterostructure buffer layer FETs, camel structure gate FET, sawtooth-doping-superlatticed (SDS) devices, heterostructure-emitter bipolar transistor (HEBT), superlattice-emitter resonant-tunneling bipolar transistor (SE-RTBT), heterostructure-emitter and heterostructure-base transistor (HEHBT), superlatticed negative-differential-resistance (NDR) device, quantum-well  -doped NDR devices, metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) like multiple switching devices, low-dimensional quantum electron devices, and deep sub-micron meter devices and technologies. He has authored and coauthored more than 160 journal papers. He holds over 23 patents in the semiconductor field. Dr. Liu is a member of Phi Tau Phi.

Hsi-Jen Pan was born in Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. on November 11, 1975. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Tam-Kang University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1997 and is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. His research concentrates on MOCVD growth technology, III-V high-speed and microwave semiconductor devices, resonant-tunneling devices, and hydrogen sensors.

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Huey-Ing Chen was born in Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1957. She 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 at NCKU as an Instructor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, in 1981. She is currently an Associate Professor in the same department. Her research presently focuses on hydrogen permselective Pd-based membranes, hydrogen sensors, gas separations, and nanoparticles.

Shiou-Ying Cheng (S96M99) was born in Taipei Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C., on February 8, 1969. He received the B.S. degree from Fong-Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan in 1991, the M.S. degree from National Taiwan-Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree from National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 1999, all in electrical engineering. He joined the faculty at Oriental Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering in 1999. His research areas focus on compound semiconductor device. Dr. Cheng is a member of Phi Tau Phi.

Kun-Wei Lin was born in Yurn-Lin, Taiwan, R.O.C., on May 21, 1971. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Fu-Jen University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1995 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 1997, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree. His research interests are in the field of III-V semiconductor devices, such as graded field-effect transistor and heterojunction bipolar transistor.

Kuo-Hui Yu was bron in Chiayi, Taiwan, R.O.C., on January 9, 1976. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, in 1998 whre he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in the Electrical Engineering Department. His research has focused on the field of III-V heterostructure field-effect transistors.