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Effect of annealing temperature on solar-blind photodetectors based on 60-nm-thick Ga2O3 films

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Abstract

In this study, 60-nm-thick Ga2O3 films were deposited on c-plane sapphire substrates by atomic layer deposition process. The effect of annealing temperature on both Ga2O3 material and optical response characteristics was studied by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and semiconductor parameter analyzer. When the annealing temperature exceeds 700 ℃, the Ga2O3 films exhibits a nanocrystalline β-phase. The Ga2O3 photoconductive solar-blind photodetectors annealed at different temperature were fabricated. The photo-current and responsivity first increase slowly and then decrease when the annealing temperature changes from 400 to 1000 ℃. An ultra-high photoresponsivity of 142 A/W with detectivity of 3.77 × 1015 Jones under 254 nm illumination was achieved for the Ga2O3 film annealed at 600 ℃ for 60 min in N2/Air mixture atmosphere, which is at a very high level for ultraviolet photodetectors based on Ga2O3 thin films (< 100 nm). When the annealing temperature is 600 ℃, the material is in the transition stage from amorphous to crystalline state, which leads to a high degree of disorder, and further results in obvious band-tail absorption effect and improves the photoresponsivity. The results provide important guidance for the preparation of solar-blind ultraviolet detectors with ultra-high performance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 62204203), Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (no. 2022JQ-684, 2023-JC-QN-0755), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2019120).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, 710121, China

    Shaoqing Wang, Nini Cheng, Guoen Zhong, Xiangtai Liu, Zhan Wang, Haifeng Chen & Yifan Jia

  2. Institute of Microelectronics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10029, China

    Songang Peng

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Contributions

In this article, the author’s contribution are as follows: SW: methodology and writing—original draft. NC: data curation. GZ: formal analysis and investigation. XL: reviewing and editing, and resources. ZW: investigation and resources. HC: supervision. YJ: investigation and resources. SP: conceptualization and resources.

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Correspondence to Songang Peng.

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Wang, S., Cheng, N., Zhong, G. et al. Effect of annealing temperature on solar-blind photodetectors based on 60-nm-thick Ga2O3 films. Appl. Phys. A 130, 86 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-023-07178-9

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