The effects of dielectric thin films on the performance of GaN-based high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) were reviewed in this work. Firstly, the nonpolar dielectric thin films which act as both the surface passivation layers and the gate insulators of the high-frequency GaN-based high-electron-mobility transistors were presented. Furthermore, the influences of dielectric thin films on the electrical properties of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in the AlGaN/GaN hetero-structures were analyzed. It was found that the additional in-plane biaxial tensile stress was another important factor besides the change in surface potential profile for the device performance improvement of the AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with dielectric thin films as both passivation layers and gate dielectrics. Then, two kinds of polar gate dielectric thin films, the ferroelectric LiNbO3 and the fluorinated Al2O3, were compared for the enhancement-mode GaN-based HEMTs, and an innovative process was proposed. At last, high-permittivity dielectric thin films were adopted as passivation layers to modulate the electric field and accordingly increase the breakdown voltage of GaN-based HEMTs. Moreover, the polyimide embedded with Cr particles effectively increased the breakdown voltage of GaN-based HEMTs. Finally, the effects of high-permittivity dielectric thin films on the potential distribution in the drift region were simulated, which showed an expanded electric field peak at the drain-side edge of gate electrode.

For the first time, large-area CVD-grown graphene films transferred onto flexible PET substrates were used as transparent conductive electrodes in alternating current electroluminescence (ACEL) devices. The flexible ACEL device based on a single-layer graphene electrode has a turn-on voltage of 80 V; at 480 V (16 kHz), the luminance and luminous efficiency are 1140 cd/m2 and 5.0 lm/W, respectively. The turn-on voltage increases and the luminance decreases with increasing stacked layers of graphene, which means the single-layer graphene is the best optimal choice as the transparent conductive electrode. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the graphene-based ACEL device is highly flexible and can work very well even under a very large strain of 5.4%, suggesting great potential applications in flexible optoelectronics.Keywords: electroluminescence devices; flexible optoelectronics; graphene; luminance; luminous efficiency

Currently, electronic information systems are developing quickly towards further miniaturization and monolithic integration so as to realize smaller volume, higher velocity and lower power consumption. For this purpose, the integration of all sorts of active devices (mainly fabricated by semiconductors) with passive devices (fabricated by functional materials) is particularly important and impendent. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate multifunctional oxide dielectrics possessing electric, magnetic, acoustic, optical and thermal properties characterized by spontaneous polarization with semiconductors bearing the characters of carrier transportation to form artificial structures via deposition of solid films. This kind of integrated films may have two characters, i.e., the all-in-one multifunction and modulation of electromagnetic properties by hetero-interface. This makes it possible to realize monolithic integration of detecting, processing, transmission, executing and storing of electronic information. Meanwhile, possible integrated coupling effects will be pursued instead of exploring the limited physical properties of the related materials. In this paper, we put forward a new direction of developing electronic devices with higher performances, and demonstrate some results concerning our recent research on the interface-controllable integrated growth of dielectrics and GaN. Recent progresses of the related research in the world are also reviewed.