Kohei Sasaki

Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors on single-crystal β-Ga2O3 (010) substrates

We report a demonstration of single-crystal gallium oxide (Ga2O3) metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs). A Sn-doped Ga2O3 layer was grown on a semi-insulating β-Ga2O3 (010) substrate by molecular-beam epitaxy. We fabricated a circular MESFET with a gate length of 4 μm and a source–drain spacing of 20 μm. The device showed an ideal transistor action represented by the drain current modulation due to the gate voltage (VGS) swing. A complete drain current pinch-off characteristic was also obtained for VGS < −20 V, and the three-terminal off-state breakdown voltage was over 250 V. A low drain leakage current of 3 μA at the off-state led to a high on/off drain current ratio of about 10 000. These device characteristics obtained at the early stage indicate the great potential of Ga2O3-based electrical devices for future power device applications.

Depletion-mode Ga2O3 metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors on β-Ga2O3 (010) substrates and temperature dependence of their device characteristics

Single-crystal gallium oxide (Ga2O3) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors were fabricated on a semi-insulating β-Ga2O3 (010) substrate. A Sn-doped n-Ga2O3 channel layer was grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. Si-ion implantation doping was performed to source and drain electrode regions for obtaining low-resistance ohmic contacts. An Al2O3 gate dielectric film formed by atomic layer deposition passivated the device surface and significantly reduced gate leakage. The device with a gate length of 2 μm showed effective gate modulation of the drain current with an extremely low off-state drain leakage of less than a few pA/mm, leading to a high drain current on/off ratio of over ten orders of magnitude. A three-terminal off-state breakdown voltage of 370 V was achieved. Stable transistor operation was sustained at temperatures up to 250 °C.

Device-Quality β-Ga2O3 Epitaxial Films Fabricated by Ozone Molecular Beam Epitaxy

N-type Ga2O3 homoepitaxial thick films were grown on β-Ga2O3(010) substrates by ozone molecular beam epitaxy. The epitaxial growth rate was increased by more than ten times by changing from the (100) plane to the (010) plane. The carrier concentration of the epitaxial layers could be varied within the range of 1016–1019 cm-3 by changing the Sn doping concentration. Platinum Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) on 1.4-µm-thick β-Ga2O3 homoepitaxial layers were demonstrated for the first time. The SBDs exhibited a reverse breakdown voltage of 100 V, an on-resistance of 2 mΩ cm2, and a forward voltage of 1.7 V (at 200 A/cm2).

Field-Plated Ga 2 O 3 MOSFETs With a Breakdown Voltage of Over 750 V

Depletion-mode field-plated Ga₂O₃ metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors were demonstrated for the first time. Substantial enhancement in breakdown voltage was achieved with a gate-connected field plate. The device channels, formed by selective-area Si ion implantation doping of an undoped Ga₂O₃ epilayer, were electrically isolated by the highly resistive epilayer without mesa etching. Effective surface passivation and high Ga₂O₃ material quality contributed to the absence of drain current collapse. The transistors exhibited an off-state breakdown voltage of 755 V, a high drain current on/off ratio of over 10⁹, and stable high temperature operation against 300°C thermal stress.

Recent progress in Ga2O3 power devices

This is a review article on the current status and future prospects of the research and development on gallium oxide (Ga2O3) power devices. Ga2O3 possesses excellent material properties, in particular for power device applications. It is also attractive from an industrial viewpoint since large-size, high-quality wafers can be manufactured from a single-crystal bulk synthesized by melt–growth methods. These two features have drawn much attention to Ga2O3 as a new wide bandgap semiconductor following SiC and GaN. In this review, we describe the recent progress in the research and development on fundamental technologies of Ga2O3 devices, covering single-crystal bulk and wafer production, homoepitaxial thin film growth by molecular beam epitaxy and halide vapor phase epitaxy, as well as device processing and characterization of metal–semiconductor field-effect transistors, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors and Schottky barrier diodes.

Correlation between blue luminescence intensity and resistivity in β-Ga2O3 single crystals

Temperature-dependent cathodoluminescence spectra were measured from (001) unintentionally doped, (100) Si-doped, and (010) Mg-doped β-Ga2O3 substrates prepared by either the floating zone growth or edge-defined film-fed growth methods. Although β-Ga2O3 is expected to be an indirect bandgap material, direct Γ-Γ transitions were found to be dominant in the optical transmittance spectra. The substrates exhibited no near-band-edge emission and instead exhibited ultraviolet luminescence, blue luminescence (BL), and green luminescence bands. Since the BL intensity strongly depended on the resistivity in the crystals, there was evidence of a correlation between the BL intensity and formation energy of oxygen vacancies.

Si-Ion Implantation Doping in β-Ga2O3 and Its Application to Fabrication of Low-Resistance Ohmic Contacts

We developed a donor doping technique for β-Ga2O3 by using Si-ion (Si+) implantation. For the implanted Ga2O3 substrates with Si+=1×1019–5×1019 cm-3, a high activation efficiency of above 60% was obtained after annealing in a nitrogen gas atmosphere at a relatively low temperature of 900–1000 °C. Annealed Ti/Au electrodes fabricated on the implanted Ga2O3 layers showed ohmic behavior. The Ga2O3 with Si+=5×1019 cm-3 showed the lowest specific contact resistance and resistivity obtained in this work of 4.6×10-6 Ωcm2 and 1.4 mΩcm, respectively.

Homoepitaxial growth of β-Ga2O3 layers by halide vapor phase epitaxy

Thick high-purity β-Ga2O3 layers of high crystalline quality were grown homoepitaxially by halide vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) using gaseous GaCl and O2 on (001) β-Ga2O3 substrates prepared by edge-defined film-fed growth. The surface morphology and structural quality of the grown layer improved with increasing growth temperature. X-ray diffraction ω-rocking curves for the (002) and (400) reflections for the layer grown at 1000 °C had small full widths at half maximum. Secondary ion mass spectrometry and electrical characteristics revealed that the growth of high-purity β-Ga2O3 layers with low effective donor concentration (Nd − Na < 1013 cm−3) is possible by HVPE.

Temperature-dependent capacitance–voltage and current–voltage characteristics of Pt/Ga2O3 (001) Schottky barrier diodes fabricated on n––Ga2O3 drift layers grown by halide vapor phase epitaxy

We investigated the temperature-dependent electrical properties of Pt/Ga2O3 Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) fabricated on n–-Ga2O3 drift layers grown on single-crystal n+-Ga2O3 (001) substrates by halide vapor phase epitaxy. In an operating temperature range from 21 °C to 200 °C, the Pt/Ga2O3 (001) Schottky contact exhibited a zero-bias barrier height of 1.09–1.15 eV with a constant near-unity ideality factor. The current–voltage characteristics of the SBDs were well-modeled by thermionic emission in the forward regime and thermionic field emission in the reverse regime over the entire temperature range.

Band alignment and electrical properties of Al2O3/β-Ga2O3 heterojunctions

The band alignment of Al2O3/n-Ga2O3 was investigated by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). With a band gap of 6.8 ± 0.2 eV measured for Al2O3, the conduction and valence band offsets at the interface were estimated to be 1.5 ± 0.2 eV and 0.7 ± 0.2 eV, respectively. The conduction band offset was also obtained from tunneling current in Al2O3/n-Ga2O3 (2¯01) metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) diodes using the Fowler-Nordheim model. The electrically extracted value was in good agreement with the XPS data. Furthermore, the MOS diodes exhibited small capacitance-voltage hysteresis loops, indicating the successful engineering of a high-quality Al2O3/Ga2O3 interface.