Ga2O3 is a semiconductor with a wide band gap of approximately 4.8-4.9 eV, which enables a high breakdown electric field (8 MV/cm), making it a highly promising material for next-generation power device applications. However, stable p-type doping is v...
Ga2O3 is a semiconductor with a wide band gap of approximately 4.8-4.9 eV, which enables a high breakdown electric field (8 MV/cm), making it a highly promising material for next-generation power device applications. However, stable p-type doping is virtually unattainable due to unintentional doping and strong self-compensation effects, and the lack of mature high-quality large-area wafer technology further imposes fundamental limitations on device integration and process scalability. To overcome these challenges, this study aims to compensate for the intrinsic limitations of Ga2O3 through heterojunction formation with a p-type oxide and to propose an oxide buffer layer growth strategy that enables integration with Si wafer-based processes.
First, amorphous Cu films were deposited on Ga2O3 (100) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering and subsequently converted into CuGaO2 (015) films via solid-phase epitaxy. The resulting films exhibited high crystallinity, a uniform interface, and an optical bandgap of approximately 3.52 eV. For Mg doped CuGaO2, a hole concentration of 2.67×1018 cm-3 and a mobility of 7.7 cm2/V·s were obtained. The heterojunction composed of p-type CuGaO2 and n-type Ga2O3 displayed clear rectifying behavior, confirming its operation as a p-n diode and demonstrating that CuGaO2 can serve as an effective p-type component in Ga2O3-based devices.
Second, to enable the integration of Ga2O3 onto Si, YSZ buffer layers were grown on Si substrates using pulsed laser deposition. Bayesian optimization was employed to efficiently identify optimal growth conditions by varying oxygen partial pressure and substrate temperature. The optimized YSZ film exhibited a crystalline quality comparable to the best reported values and an exceptionally smooth surface with a roughness of approximately 0.48 nm. Ga2O3 films were subsequently grown on the optimized YSZ layers, confirming that YSZ provides favorable crystallographic alignment and functions effectively as a buffer layer.
Overall, this work successfully demonstrates the formation of a Ga2O3-based p-n heterojunction using high-quality CuGaO2 films and the establishment of a high-crystallinity YSZ buffer platform on Si substrates. These results collectively mitigate key structural limitations of Ga2O3 and highlight a pathway toward integrating Ga2O3 device technology with existing Si-based processing, providing a foundation for future studies on oxide thin films and heterojunction architectures.