Dante O'Hara

Molecular beam epitaxy of 2D-layered gallium selenide on GaN substrates

Large area epitaxy of two-dimensional (2D) layered materials with high material quality is a crucial step in realizing novel device applications based on 2D materials. In this work, we report high-quality, crystalline, large-area gallium selenide (GaSe) films grown on bulk substrates such as c-plane sapphire and gallium nitride (GaN) using a valved cracker source for Se. (002)-Oriented GaSe with random in-plane orientation of domains was grown on sapphire and GaN substrates at a substrate temperature of 350–450 °C with complete surface coverage. Higher growth temperature (575 °C) resulted in the formation of single-crystalline e-GaSe triangular domains with six-fold symmetry confirmed by in-situ reflection high electron energy diffraction and off-axis x-ray diffraction. A two-step growth method involving high temperature nucleation of single crystalline domains and low temperature growth to enhance coalescence was adopted to obtain continuous (002)-oriented GaSe with an epitaxial relationship with the sub...

Large-area SnSe2/GaN heterojunction diodes grown by molecular beam epitaxy

We report on the synthesis and properties of wafer-scale two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) n-SnSe2/n-GaN(0001) heterojunctions. The hexagonal crystal structure of crystalline SnSe2 grown by molecular beam epitaxy was confirmed via in-situ reflection high-energy electron diffraction and off-axis X-ray diffraction. Current-voltage (I-V) measurements of SnSe2/GaN diodes exhibited 9 orders of magnitude rectification, and the SnSe2/GaN heterojunction barrier height was estimated to be 1 eV using capacitance-voltage measurements and internal photoemission measurements. Vertical electronic transport analyzed using temperature-dependent I-V measurements indicates thermionic field emission transport across the junction. This work demonstrates the potential of epitaxial growth of large area high quality 2D crystals on 3D bulk semiconductors for device applications involving carrier injection across 2D/3D heterojunctions.