Degradation of β-Ga<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> Schottky barrier diode under swift heavy ion irradiation*
Wen-Si Ai, Jie Liu, Qian Feng, Peng-Fei Zhai, Pei-Pei Hu, Jian Zeng, Sheng-Xia Zhang, Zong-Zhen Li, Li Liu, Xiao-Yu Yan, You-Mei Sun
Abstract
The electrical characteristics and microstructures of β -Ga 2 O 3 Schottky barrier diode (SBD) devices irradiated with swift heavy ions (2096 MeV Ta ions) have been studied. It was found that β -Ga 2 O 3 SBD devices showed the reliability degradation after irradiation, including turn-on voltage V on , on-resistance R on , ideality factor n , and the reverse leakage current density J r . In addition, the carrier concentration of the drift layer was decreased significantly and the calculated carrier removal rates were 5 × 10 6 –1.3 × 10 7 cm −1 . Latent tracks induced by swift heavy ions were observed visually in the whole β -Ga 2 O 3 matrix. Furthermore, crystal structure of tracks was amorphized completely. The latent tracks induced by Ta ions bombardments were found to be the reason for the decrease in carrier mobility and carrier concentration. Eventually, these defects caused the degradation of electrical characteristics of the devices. In terms of the carrier removal rates, the β -Ga 2 O 3 SBD devices were more sensitive to swift heavy ions irradiation than SiC and GaN devices.