NiO/Ga 2 O 3 heterojunction rectifiers were exposed to 1 Mrad fluences of Co-60 γ-rays either with or without reverse biases. While there is a small component of Compton electrons (600 keV), generated via the interaction of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV gamma photons with the semiconductor, which in turn can lead to displacement damage, most of the energy is lost to ionization. The effect of the exposure to radiation is a 1000× reduction in forward current and a 100× increase in reverse current in the rectifiers, which is independent of whether the devices were biased during this step. The on–off ratio is also reduced by almost five orders of magnitude. There is a slight reduction in carrier concentration in the Ga 2 O 3 drift region, with an effective carrier removal rate of <4 cm −1 . The changes in electrical characteristics are reversible by application of short forward current pulses during repeated measurement of the current–voltage characteristics at room temperature. There are no permanent total ionizing dose effects present in the rectifiers to 1 Mad fluences, which along with their resistance to displacement damage effects indicate that these devices may be well-suited to harsh terrestrial and space radiation applications if appropriate bias sequencesmore »
This content will become publicly available on September 1, 2023
Radiation Damage in the Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Ga 2 O 3
We present a review of the published experimental and simulation radiation damage results in Ga 2 O 3 . All of the polytypes of Ga 2 O 3 are expected to show similar radiation resistance as GaN and SiC, considering their average bond strengths. However, this is not enough to explain the orders of magnitude difference of the relative resistance to radiation damage of these materials compared to GaAs and dynamic annealing of defects is much more effective in Ga 2 O 3 . It is important to examine the effect of all types of radiation, given that Ga 2 O 3 devices will potentially be deployed both in space and terrestrial applications. Octahedral gallium monovacancies are the main defects produced under most radiation conditions because of the larger cross-section for interaction compared to oxygen vacancies. Proton irradiation introduces two main paramagnetic defects in Ga 2 O 3 , which are stable at room temperature. Charge carrier removal can be explained by Fermi-level pinning far from the conduction band minimum due to gallium interstitials (Ga i ), vacancies (V Ga ), and antisites (Ga O ). One of the most important parameters to establish is the carrier removal rate for more »
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10353825
- Journal Name:
- ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 9
- Page Range or eLocation-ID:
- 095001
- ISSN:
- 2162-8769
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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