A 2.8 kV Breakdown Voltage α-Ga2O3 MOSFET with Hybrid Schottky Drain Contact.

Among various polymorphic phases of gallium oxide (Ga2O3), α-phase Ga2O3 has clear advantages such as its heteroepitaxial growth as well as wide bandgap, which is promising for use in power devices. In this work, we demonstrate α-Ga2O3 MOSFETs with hybrid Schottky drain (HSD) contact, comprising both Ohmic and Schottky electrode regions. In comparison with conventional Ohmic drain (OD) contact, a lower on-resistance (Ron) of 2.1 kΩ mm is achieved for variable channel lengths. Physics-based TCAD simulation is performed to validate the turn-on characteristics of the Schottky electrode region and the improved Ron. Electric-field analysis in the off-state is conducted for both the OD and HSD devices. Furthermore, a record breakdown voltage (BV) of 2.8 kV is achieved, which is superior to the 1.7 kV of the compared OD device. Our results show that the proposed HSD contact with a further optimized design can be a promising drain electrode scheme for α-Ga2O3 power MOSFETs.

ß-Ga2O3 Air-Channel Field-Emission Nanodiode with Ultrahigh Current Density and Low Turn-On Voltage.

Field-emission nanodiodes with air-gap channels based on single ß-Ga2O3 nanowires have been investigated in this work. With a gap of ∼50 nm and an asymmetric device structure, the proposed nanodiode achieves good diode characteristics through field emission in air at room temperature. Measurement results show that the nanodiode exhibits an ultrahigh emission current density, a high enhancement factor of >2300, and a low turn-on voltage of 0.46 V. More impressively, the emission current almost keeps constant over a wide range (8 orders of magnitude) of air pressures below 1 atm. Meanwhile, the fluctuation in field-emission current is below 8.7% during long-time monitoring, which is better than the best reported field-emission device based on ß-Ga2O3 nanostructures. All of these results indicate that ß-Ga2O3 air-gapped nanodiodes are promising candidates for vacuum electronics that can also operate in air.

Reduction of dislocations in α-Ga2O3 epilayers grown by halide vapor-phase epitaxy on a conical frustum-patterned sapphire substrate.

The compound α-Ga2O3 is an ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductor and possesses outstanding properties such as a high breakdown voltage and symmetry compared with other phases. It has been studied for applications in high-performance power devices. However, it is difficult to obtain a high-quality thin films because α-Ga2O3 can only grow heteroepitaxially, which results in residual stress generation owing to lattice mismatch and thermal expansion between the substrate and α-Ga2O3. To overcome this, α-Ga2O3 was grown on a conical frustum-patterned sapphire substrate by halide vapor-phase epitaxy. The surface morphology was crack-free and flat. The α-Ga2O3 grown on a frustum-patterned substrate and a conventional sapphire substrate at 500°C exhibited full-width at half-maxima of 961 and 1539 arcsec, respectively, for 10-12 diffraction. For the former substrate, lateral growth on the pattern and threading dislocation bending towards the pattern suppressed the propagation of threading dislocations generated at the interface, which reduced the threading dislocation propagation to the surface by half compared with that on the latter conventional substrate. The results suggest that conical frustum-patterned sapphire substrates have the potential to produce high-quality α-Ga2O3 epilayers.

Catalyst-Assisted Large-Area Growth of Single-Crystal ß-Ga2O3 Nanowires on Sapphire Substrates by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition.

In this work, we have achieved synthesizing large-area high-density ß-Ga2O3 nanowires on c-plane sapphire substrate by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition assisted with Au nanocrystal seeds as catalysts. These nanowires exhibit one-dimensional structures with Au nanoparticles on the top of the nanowires with lengths exceeding 6 µm and diameters ranging from ~50 to ~200 nm. The ß-Ga2O3 nanowires consist of a single-crystal monoclinic structure, which exhibits strong (201) orientation, confirmed by transmission electronic microscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis. The PL spectrum obtained from these ß-Ga2O3 nanowires exhibits strong emissions centered at ~360 and ~410 nm, respectively. The energy band gap of the ß-Ga2O3 nanowires is estimated to be ~4.7 eV based on an optical transmission test. A possible mechanism for the growth of ß-Ga2O3 nanowires is also presented.

Boron Nitride as a Passivation Capping Layer for AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors.

We report on the electrical characteristics of AlGaN/GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) as a passivation capping layer. The HEMTs with h-BN layers showed an increase in current drainage and 103-times reduction in the gate-leakage current compared with those of conventional unpassivated HEMTs. Moreover, the extrinsic transconductance and the pulse responses were improved due to the reduced charge-trapping effect at the surface of HEMTs. From our observations, the h-BN can be used as a passivation capping layer for high-power electronic devices.

A facile single-step synthesis of polyvinylpyrrolidone-silver nanocomposites using a conventional spray dryer.

We have developed a facile single-step synthesis of silver nanocomposite using a conventional spray dryer. We investigated the synthetic conditions by controlling the concentrations of the chemical reactants. Further, we confirmed the effect of the molecular weight of polyvinylpyrrolidones, and revealed that the molecular weight significantly affected the properties of the resultant silver nanocomposites. The long-term stability of the silver nanocomposites was tested, and little change was observed, even after storage for three months. Most of all, the simple commercial implementation, in combination with large-scale synthesis, possesses a variety of advantages, compared to conventional complicated and costly dry-process synthesis methods. Thus, our method presents opportunities for further investigation, for both lab-scale studies and large-scale industrial applications.

Enhanced optical output performance in InGaN/GaN light-emitting diode embedded with SiO2nanoparticles.

We demonstrated the InGaN/GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with SiO2 nanoparticles embedded in nanopillar GaN template. With the SiO2 nanoparticles placed between the GaN nanopillars, subsequent overgrowth of GaN layer started only on the exposed tips of the nanopillars and rapidly switched to the lateral growth mode. This resulted in a high quality GaN layer "sitting" on the nanopillars and the layer of pores formed over the SiO2 nanoparticles. For multi-quantum-well LEDs grown on top of such template, ~3 fold increase in optical output was observed compared to reference samples. The effect is attributed mainly to the improved light extraction efficiency due to additional scattering in the nanopillars-SiO2-pores portion of the structure, also to the increased internal quantum efficiency caused by a decreased dislocation density and relaxed strain due to the GaN nanopillars.

Facile fabrication of free-standing light emitting diode by combination of wet chemical etchings.

Free-standing GaN light-emitting diode (LED) structure with high crystalline quality was fabricated by combining electrochemical and photoelectrochemical etching followed by regrowth of LED structure and subsequent mechanical detachment from a substrate. The structural quality and composition of the regrown LED film thus produced was similar to standard LED, but the photoluminescence and electroluminescence intensity of the LED structures on the etched template were several times higher than for standard LED. The performance enhancement was attributable to additional light scattering and improved crystalline quality as a result of the combined etching scheme.

Improved photoluminescence efficiency in UV nanopillar light emitting diode structures by recovery of dry etching damage.

In this study, we have fabricated 375-nm-wavelength InGaN/AlInGaN nanopillar light emitting diodes (LED) structures on c-plane sapphire. A uniform and highly vertical nanopillar structure was fabricated using self-organized Ni/SiO2 nano-size mask by dry etching method. To minimize the dry etching damage, the samples were subjected to high temperature annealing with subsequent chemical passivation in KOH solution. Prior to annealing and passivation the UV nanopillar LEDs showed the photoluminescence (PL) efficiency about 2.5 times higher than conventional UV LED structures which is attributed to better light extraction efficiency and possibly some improvement of internal quantum efficiency due to partially relieved strain. Annealing alone further increased the PL efficiency by about 4.5 times compared to the conventional UV LEDs, while KOH passivation led to the overall PL efficiency improvement by more than 7 times. Combined results of Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) suggest that annealing decreases the number of lattice defects and relieves the strain in the surface region of the nanopillars whereas KOH treatment removes the surface oxide from nanopillar surface.

Enhanced light output of InGaN/GaN blue light emitting diodes with Ag nano-particles embedded in nano-needle layer.

2.7 times increase in room temperature photoluminescence (PL) intensity and 3.2 times increase in electroluminescence (EL) intensity were observed in blue multi-quantum-well (MQW) GaN/InGaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) as a result of introduction of nano-needle structure embedded with Ag nanoparticles (NPs) into n-GaN film underlying the active MQW region and thick p-GaN contact layer of LEDs. The nano-needle structure was produced by photoelectrochemical etching. Simultaneously a measurable decrease in room temperature decay time from 2.2 ns in control samples to 1.6 ns in PL was observed. The results are explained by strong coupling of recombination in GaN/InGaN MQWs with Ag NPs related localized surface plasmons.

Localized surface plasmon enhanced quantum efficiency of InGaN/GaN quantum wells by Ag/SiO2 nanoparticles.

Optical properties of InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-well (MQW) structures with a nanolayer of Ag/SiO2 nanoparticle (NP) on top were studied. Modeling and optical absorption (OA) measurements prove that the NPs form localized surface plasmons (LSP) structure with a broad OA band peaked near 440-460 nm and the fringe electric field extending down to about 10 nm into the GaN layer. The presence of this NP LSP electrical field increases the photoluminescence (PL) intensity of the MQW structure by about 70% and markedly decreases the time-resolved PL (TRPL) relaxation time due to the strong coupling of MQW emission to the LSP mode.