In this work, the interesting temperature-dependent characteristics of a Pd/InAlAs based metamorphic heterostructure field-effect transistor (MHFET) with an electroless plating (EP)-gate approach are demonstrated and studied. Based on the low-energy and low-temperature chemical deposition, the EP technique can reduce the thermal damage and disordered-states to form a better metal-semiconductor (MS) interface. The EP-gate device shows better performance including higher turn-on voltage (0.978 V), lower gate leakage current (2.1 mu A/mm), higher Schottky barrier height (0.742 eV), lower ideality factor (1.15), higher transconductance (272.4 mS/mm), higher drain saturation current (420.2 mA/mm), wider I-DS operating region (291.3 mA/mm), and higher voltage gain (449.7) than a thermal evaporation (TE)-gate one over a wide temperature range (300-420 K). (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.