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Ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) Al0.65Ga0.35N channel high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) were deposited using a close-coupled showerhead metal-organic chemical vapor deposition reactor on AlN-on-sapphire templates to investigate the effect of transport properties of the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) on the epitaxial structure design. The impact of various scattering phenomena on AlGaN channel HEMTs was analyzed with respect to the channel, buffer, and AlN interlayer design, revealing that the alloy disorder and ionized impurity scattering mechanisms were predominant, limiting the mobility of 2DEG up to 180 cm2/Vs for a sheet charge density of 1.1 × 1013 cm−2. A surface roughness of <1 nm (2 μm × 2 μm atomic force microscopy scan) was achieved for the epitaxial structures demonstrating superior crystalline quality. The fabricated HEMT device showed state-of-the-art contact resistivity (ρc = 8.35 × 10^−6 Ω · cm2), low leakage current (<10^−6 A/mm), high ION/IOFF ratio (>10^5), a breakdown voltage of 2.55 kV, and a Baliga's figure of merit of 260 MW/cm2. This study demonstrates the optimization of the structural design of UWBG AlGaN channel HEMTs and its effect on transport properties to obtain state-of-the-art device performance. 

ScAlMgO4 (SAM) is a promising substrate material for group III-nitride semiconductors. SAM has a lower lattice mismatch with III-nitride materials compared to conventionally used sapphire (Al2O3) and silicon substrates. Bulk SAM substrate has the issues of high cost and lack of large area substrates. Utilizing solid-phase epitaxy to transform an amorphous SAM on a sapphire substrate into a crystalline form is a cost-efficient and scalable approach. Amorphous SAM layers were deposited on 0001-oriented Al2O3 by sputtering and crystallized by annealing at a temperature greater than 850 °C. Annealing under suboptimal annealing conditions results in a larger volume fraction of a competing spinel phase (MgAl2O4) exhibiting themselves as crystal facets on the subsequently grown InGaN layers during MOCVD growth. InGaN on SAM layers demonstrated both a higher intensity and emission redshift compared to the co-loaded InGaN on GaN on sapphire samples, providing a promising prospect for achieving efficient longer-wavelength emitters. 

Abstract The development of new materials and their compositional and microstructural optimization are essential in regard to next-generation technologies such as clean energy and environmental sustainability. However, materials discovery and optimization have been a frustratingly slow process. The Edisonian trial-and-error process is time consuming and resource inefficient, particularly when contrasted with vast materials design spaces¹. Whereas traditional combinatorial deposition methods can generate material libraries^2,3, these suffer from limited material options and inability to leverage major breakthroughs in nanomaterial synthesis. Here we report a high-throughput combinatorial printing method capable of fabricating materials with compositional gradients at microscale spatial resolution. In situ mixing and printing in the aerosol phase allows instantaneous tuning of the mixing ratio of a broad range of materials on the fly, which is an important feature unobtainable in conventional multimaterials printing using feedstocks in liquid–liquid or solid–solid phases^4–6. We demonstrate a variety of high-throughput printing strategies and applications in combinatorial doping, functional grading and chemical reaction, enabling materials exploration of doped chalcogenides and compositionally graded materials with gradient properties. The ability to combine the top-down design freedom of additive manufacturing with bottom-up control over local material compositions promises the development of compositionally complex materials inaccessible via conventional manufacturing approaches. 

The ability of thermoelectric (TE) materials to convert thermal energy to electricity and vice versa highlights them as a promising candidate for sustainable energy applications. Despite considerable increases in the figure of merit zT of thermoelectric materials in the past two decades, there is still a prominent need to develop scalable synthesis and flexible manufacturing processes to convert high-efficiency materials into high-performance devices. Scalable printing techniques provide a versatile solution to not only fabricate both inorganic and organic TE materials with fine control over the compositions and microstructures, but also manufacture thermoelectric devices with optimized geometric and structural designs that lead to improved efficiency and system-level performances. In this review, we aim to provide a comprehensive framework of printing thermoelectric materials and devices by including recent breakthroughs and relevant discussions on TE materials chemistry, ink formulation, flexible or conformable device design, and processing strategies, with an emphasis on additive manufacturing techniques. In addition, we review recent innovations in the flexible, conformal, and stretchable device architectures and highlight state-of-the-art applications of these TE devices in energy harvesting and thermal management. Perspectives of emerging research opportunities and future directions are also discussed. While this review centers on thermoelectrics, the fundamental ink chemistry and printing processes possess the potential for applications to a broad range of energy, thermal and electronic devices.