Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is emerging as a viable candidate for certain classes of power electronics, solar blind UV photodetectors, solar cells, and sensors with capabilities beyond existing technologies due to its large bandgap. It is usually reported that there are five different polymorphs of Ga2O3, namely, the monoclinic (β-Ga2O3), rhombohedral (α), defective spinel (γ), cubic (δ), or orthorhombic (e) structures. Of these, the β-polymorph is the stable form under normal conditions and has been the most widely studied and utilized. Since melt growth techniques can be used to grow bulk crystals of β-GaO3, the cost of producing larger area, uniform substrates is potentially lower compared to the vapor growth techniques used to manufacture bulk crystals of GaN and SiC. The performance of technologically important high voltage rectifiers and enhancement-mode Metal-Oxide Field Effect Transistors benefit from the larger critical electric field of β-Ga2O3 relative to either SiC or GaN. However, the absence of clear demonstrations of p-type doping in Ga2O3, which may be a fundamental issue resulting from the band structure, makes it very difficult to simultaneously achieve low turn-on voltages and ultra-high breakdown. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent advances in the growth, processing, and device performance of the most widely studied polymorph, β-Ga2O3. The role of defects and impurities on the transport and optical properties of bulk, epitaxial, and nanostructures material, the difficulty in p-type doping, and the development of processing techniques like etching, contact formation, dielectrics for gate formation, and passivation are discussed. Areas where continued development is needed to fully exploit the properties of Ga2O3 are identified.

A review of Ga2O3 materials, processing, and devices

Highly crystallized ZnO–Ga2O3 core–shell heterostructure microwire is synthesized by a simple one-step chemical vapor deposition method, and constructed into a self-powered solar-blind (200–280 nm) photodetector with a sharp cutoff wavelength at 266 nm. The device shows an ultrahigh responsivity (9.7 mA W−1) at 251 nm with a high UV/visible rejection ratio (R251 nm/R400 nm) of 6.9 × 102 under zero bias. The self-powered device has a fast response speed with rise time shorter than 100 µs and decay time of 900 µs, respectively. The ultrahigh responsivity, high UV/visible rejection ratio, and fast response speed make it highly suitable in practical self-powered solar-blind detection. Additinoally, this microstructure heterojunction design method would provide a new approach to realize the high-performance self-powered photodetectors.

An Ultrahigh Responsivity (9.7 mA W −1 ) Self‐Powered Solar‐Blind Photodetector Based on Individual ZnO–Ga 2 O 3 Heterostructures

β-Ga2O3 epitaxial thin films were deposited using laser molecular beam epitaxy technique and oxygen atmosphere in situ annealed in order to reduce the oxygen vacancy. Metal/semiconductor/metal structured photodetectors were fabricated using as-grown film and annealed film separately. Au/Ti electrodes were Ohmic contact with the as-grown films and Schottky contact with the annealed films. In compare with the Ohmic-type photodetector, the Schottky-type photodetector takes on lower dark current, higher photoresponse, and shorter switching time, which benefit from Schottky barrier controlling electron transport and the quantity of photogenerated carriers trapped by oxygen vacancy significant decreasing.

Oxygen vacancy tuned Ohmic-Schottky conversion for enhanced performance in β-Ga2O3 solar-blind ultraviolet photodetectors

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has a variety of impacts including the health of humans, the production of crops, and the lifetime of buildings. Based on the photovoltaic effect, self-powered UV photode...

Self-Powered Ultraviolet Photodetector with Superhigh Photoresponsivity (3.05 A/W) Based on the GaN/Sn:Ga2O3 pn Junction.

Because of the direct band gap of 4.9 eV, β-Ga2O3 has been considered as an ideal material for solar-blind photodetection without any bandgap tuning. Practical applications of the photodetectors require fast response speed, high signal-to-noise ratio, low energy consumption and low fabrication cost. Unfortunately, most reported β-Ga2O3-based photodetectors usually possess a relatively long response time. In addition, the β-Ga2O3 photodetectors based on bulk, the individual 1D nanostructure, and the film often suffer from the high cost, the low repeatability, and the relatively large dark current, respectively. In this paper, a Au/β-Ga2O3 nanowires array film vertical Schottky photodiode is successfully fabricated by a simple thermal partial oxidation process. The device exhibits a very low dark current of 10 pA at −30 V with a sharp cutoff at 270 nm. More interestingly, the 90–10% decay time of our device is only around 64 μs, which is much quicker than any other previously reported β-Ga2O3-based photodet...

Self-Powered Solar-Blind Photodetector with Fast Response Based on Au/β-Ga2O3 Nanowires Array Film Schottky Junction

Laser molecular beam epitaxy technology has been employed to deposit β-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) on (0001) sapphire substrates. After optimizing the growth parameters, (2¯01)-oriented β-Ga2O3 thin film was obtained. Ultraviolet-visible absorption spectrum demonstrates that the prepared β-Ga2O3 thin film shows excellent solar-blind ultraviolet (UV) characteristic with a band gap of 5.02 eV. A prototype photodetector device with a metal-semiconductor-metal structure has been fabricated using high quality β-Ga2O3 film. The device exhibits obvious photoresponse under 254 nm UV light irradiation, suggesting a potential application in solar-blind photodetectors.

Fabrication of β-Ga_2O_3 thin films and solar-blind photodetectors by laser MBE technology

A solar-blind photodetector based on β-Ga2O3/NSTO (NSTO = Nb:SrTiO3) heterojunctions were fabricated for the first time, and its photoelectric properties were investigated. The device presents a typical positive rectification in the dark, while under 254 nm UV light illumination, it shows a negative rectification, which might be caused by the generation of photoinduced electron–hole pairs in the β-Ga2O3 film layer. With zero bias, that is, zero power consumption, the photodetector shows a fast photoresponse time (decay time τd = 0.07 s) and the ratio Iphoto/Idark ≈ 20 under 254 nm light illumination with a light intensity of 45 μW/cm2. Such behaviors are attributed to the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs driven by the built-in electric field in the depletion region of β-Ga2O3 and the NSTO interface, and the subsequent transport toward corresponding electrodes. The photocurrent increases linearly with increasing the light intensity and applied bias, while the response time decreases with th...

Zero-Power-Consumption Solar-Blind Photodetector Based on β-Ga2O3/NSTO Heterojunction

Negative differential resistance (NDR) and bipolar resistive switching (RS) phenomena were observed in Au/Ga2O3−x/Nb:SrTiO3/Au heterostructures fabricated by growing amorphous gallium oxide thin films on 0.7%Nb-doped SrTiO3 substrates using pulsed laser deposition technique. The RS behavior is reproducible and stable without the forming process. The NDR phenomenon happened during the course of RS from low resistance state to high resistance state and was dependent much on the applied forward bias. The bias dependent charge releasing from oxygen vacancies was considered to contribute to the NDR behavior. The results show that there is a very close relationship between NDR and RS.

Bias tuning charge-releasing leading to negative differential resistance in amorphous gallium oxide/Nb:SrTiO3 heterostructure

The invention relates to a preparation method for an ultraviolet photoelectric device, and particularly relates to a preparation method for an ultraviolet photoelectric device based on a Sm2O3/n-Si heterostructure A layer of Sm2O3 film is deposited on an N-type Si(100) substrate via a radio frequency magnetron sputtering technology, and then a layer of gold (Au) film with thickness of about 50nm is deposited on the substrate and the film by utilizing a mask plate to be used as an electrode The photoelectric performance test result of the ultraviolet photoelectric device displays that the device has great photoelectric response Advantages of the preparation method are that the prepared photoelectric device is stable in performance, sensitive in reaction and low in dark current and has great potential application; besides, the preparation technology has characteristics of being high in controllability, easy to operate and great in universality so as to possess great application prospect

Han Liu

Papers

Fabrication of β-Ga_2O_3 thin films and solar-blind photodetectors by laser MBE technology

Zero-Power-Consumption Solar-Blind Photodetector Based on β-Ga2O3/NSTO Heterojunction

Bias tuning charge-releasing leading to negative differential resistance in amorphous gallium oxide/Nb:SrTiO3 heterostructure

Preparation method for ultraviolet photoelectric device based on Sm2O3/n-Si heterostructure