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There is increasing interest in α-polytype Ga2O3 for power device applications, but there are few published reports on dielectrics for this material. Finding a dielectric with large band offsets for both valence and conduction bands is especially challenging given its large bandgap of 5.1 eV. One option is HfSiO4 deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD), which provides conformal, low damage deposition and has a bandgap of 7 eV. The valence band offset of the HfSiO4/Ga2O3 heterointerface was measured using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The single-crystal α-Ga2O3 was grown by halide vapor phase epitaxy on sapphire substrates. The valence band offset was 0.82 ± 0.20 eV (staggered gap, type-II alignment) for ALD HfSiO4 on α-Ga0.2O3. The corresponding conduction band offset was −2.72 ± 0.45 eV, providing no barrier to electrons moving into Ga2O3.

The band alignments of two candidate dielectrics for ScAlN, namely, SiO2 and Al2O2, were obtained by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. We compared the effect of deposition method on the valence band offsets of both sputtered and atomic layer deposition films of SiO2 and Al2O3 on Sc0.27Al0.73 N (bandgap 5.1 eV) films. The band alignments are type I (straddled gap) for SiO2 and type II (staggered gap) for Al2O3. The deposition methods make a large difference in relative valence band offsets, in the range 0.4–0.5 eV for both SiO2 and Al2O3. The absolute valence band offsets were 2.1 or 2.6 eV for SiO2 and 1.5 or 1.9 eV for Al2O3 on ScAlN. Conduction band offsets derived from these valence band offsets, and the measured bandgaps were then in the range 1.0–1.1 eV for SiO2 and 0.30–0.70 eV for Al2O3. These latter differences can be partially ascribed to changes in bandgap for the case of SiO2 deposited by the two different methods, but not for Al2O3, where the bandgap as independent of deposition method. Since both dielectrics can be selectively removed from ScAlN, they are promising as gate dielectrics for transistor structures.