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Improving the production of high-performance solar-blind β-Ga2O3 photodetectors by controlling the growth pressure

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Abstract

In this work, β-Ga2O3 films are obtained by the RF magnetron sputtering method. Effects of the growth pressure on properties of the deposited β-Ga2O3 films and the corresponding solar-blind metal–semiconductor–metal photodetectors are investigated systematically. It is shown that when the deposition pressure increases, the full width at half maximum of β-Ga2O3\( \left( {\bar{2}01} \right) \) X-ray diffraction peaks decreases firstly and then increase. The peak intensities increase firstly, reach a maximum at 25 mTorr and then decrease with increasing pressure. The similar variation tendency is also reflected on the bandgap, oxygen vacancy and roughness of β-Ga2O3 films. It is supposed that all these properties depend on two factors: atoms diffusion ability and the defects with growth pressure. By controlling the growth pressure, the fabricated interdigitated solar-blind photodetectors exhibit excellent characteristics, including a large spectral responsivity (303 A/W), a low dark current (10pA at 20 V), a large photo-to-dark current ratio (> 105), a high external quantum efficiency (over 1 × 105%) and a fast response speed (rise time: 0.52 s and fall time: 0.12 s).

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by National 111 Center (Grant No. B12026) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (61604119, 11435010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Technology Disciplines State Key Laboratory, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710071, China

    Zhe Li, Zhiyuan An, Yu Xu, Yaolin Cheng, Ya’nan Cheng, Dazheng Chen, Qian Feng, Shengrui Xu, Jincheng Zhang, Chunfu Zhang & Yue Hao

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  1. Zhe Li
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  2. Zhiyuan An
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Correspondence to Chunfu Zhang.

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Li, Z., An, Z., Xu, Y. et al. Improving the production of high-performance solar-blind β-Ga2O3 photodetectors by controlling the growth pressure. J Mater Sci 54, 10335–10345 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-019-03628-z

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