학술논문

Effect of Oxygen Precursors on Growth Mechanism in High-Quality β-Ga₂O₃ Epilayers on Sapphire by Molecular Beam Epitaxy and Related Solar-Blind Photodetectors
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Sensors Journal IEEE Sensors J. Sensors Journal, IEEE. 24(9):14109-14117 May, 2024
Subject
Signal Processing and Analysis
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Robotics and Control Systems
Substrates
Plasma temperature
Plasmas
Gases
Surface morphology
Molecular beam epitaxial growth
Photodetectors
Growth mechanism
molecular beam epitaxy (MBE)
oxygen precursor
solar-blind photodetectors (PDs)
β-Ga₂O₃
Language
ISSN
1530-437X
1558-1748
2379-9153
Abstract
In this work, we report on high-quality $\beta $ -Ga2O3 epilayers on sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using ozone and oxygen plasma precursors, respectively. A systematic examination of the surface morphology, nucleation process, and epilayer compositions of the $\beta $ -Ga2O3 epilayers is conducted to elucidate the impact of ozone and oxygen plasma precursors on the growth mechanism. Compared to $\beta $ -Ga2O3 epilayers using ozone precursor, which exhibit a Volmer–Weber growth mode with early stage nucleation gaps, the epilayers using oxygen plasma show a Stranski–Krastanow (S–K) growth mode under the modification of the oxygen plasma. In addition, metal–semiconductor–metal solar-blind photodetectors (PDs) are then constructed using the optimized $\beta $ -Ga2O3 epilayers. The oxygen plasma-grown $\beta $ -Ga2O3 PDs display a dark current of 3.2 nA, a photo-dark current ratio (PDCR) of $2.98\times 10^{4}$ , and a specific detectivity of $6.51\times 10^{{13}}$ Jones, while the ozone-grown $\beta $ -Ga2O3 PDs manifest a low dark current of 7.5 pA, a higher PDCR of $1.31\times 10^{{7}}$ , and a higher specific detectivity of $1.31\times 10^{{15}}$ Jones at 10 V, which originate from the lower oxygen vacancy in ozone-grown $\beta $ -Ga $_{{2}}~\text{O}_{{3}}$ epilayers. This work reveals the heteroepitaxial growth mechanism of $\beta $ -Ga2O3 on sapphire by MBE, offering a facile, cheap, and effective approach for high-performance and large-area solar-blind PDs.