RESEARCH ARTICLE | MAY 23 2023

Ge-ion implantation and activation in (100) β-Ga2O3 for ohmic

contact improvement using pulsed rapid thermal annealing
Special Collection: Gallium Oxide Materials and Devices

Kornelius Tetzner  ; Andreas Thies; Palvan Seyidov ; Ta-Shun Chou ; Jana Rehm ;
Ina Ostermay ; Zbigniew Galazka ; Andreas Fiedler ; Andreas Popp ; Joachim Würfl ; Oliver Hilt

J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41, 043102 (2023)

https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0002642

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 ARTICLE avs.scitation.org/journal/jva

Ge-ion implantation and activation in (100)

β-Ga2O3 for ohmic contact improvement using
pulsed rapid thermal annealing
Cite as: J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41, 043102 (2023); doi: 10.1116/6.0002642
Submitted: 6 March 2023 · Accepted: 24 April 2023 · View Online Export Citation CrossMark
Published Online: 23 May 2023

Kornelius Tetzner,1,a) Andreas Thies,1 Palvan Seyidov,2 Ta-Shun Chou,2 Jana Rehm,2 Ina Ostermay,1
2 2 2 1
Zbigniew Galazka, Andreas Fiedler, Andreas Popp, Joachim Würfl, and Oliver Hilt1

AFFILIATIONS
1
Ferdinand-Braun-Institut, Leibniz-Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik, Gustav-Kirchhoff-Straße 4, Berlin 12489, Germany
2
Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung (IKZ), Max-Born-Str. 2, Berlin 12489, Germany

Note: This paper is part of the Special Topic Collection on Gallium Oxide Materials and Devices.
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: kornelius.tetzner@fbh-berlin.de

ABSTRACT

15 November 2023 17:43:27

In this work, we analyze the optimum annealing conditions for the activation of Ge-implanted β-Ga2O3 in order to reach low ohmic
contact resistances. The experiments involved the use of a pulsed rapid thermal annealing treatment at temperatures between 900 and
1200 °C in nitrogen atmosphere. Our investigations show remarkable changes in the surface morphology involving increased surface rough-
ness after high-temperature annealing above 1000 °C as well as a significant redistribution of the implanted Ge. Nevertheless, the specific
contact resistance is strongly reduced by one order of magnitude after annealing at 1100 °C, reaching a record value of 4.8 × 10−7 Ω cm2 at
an implantation activation efficiency of 14.2%. The highest activation efficiency of 19.2% and lowest sheet resistances were reached upon
annealing at 1200 °C, which, in turn, showed inferior ohmic contact properties due to a severe increase of the surface roughness. Our results
verify the high potential of applying high-temperature annealing processes above 1000 °C after Ge implantation for reaching low ohmic
contact resistances to β-Ga2O3.

© 2023 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0002642

I. INTRODUCTION field-effect transistors,16–18 or heterojunction field-effect transistors19–21

Beta gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) with its ultrawide bandgap of
∼4.8 eV has emerged as a promising semiconducting material for
next-generation power electronic devices.1,2 The estimated dielectric
strength of 8 MV/cm along with the expected Baliga’s figure of merit
which is more than 3000 times higher than that of silicon provide the
ideal conditions to realize power devices with even higher breakdown
voltages and efficiencies than their SiC and GaN counterparts.3
Moreover, β-Ga2O3 bears the advantage of large-area bulk substrates
being available from melt growth techniques such as Czochralski,4,5
vertical Bridgeman,6,7 and edge-defined film-fed growth,8 which is
very beneficial for low-cost wafer mass production. Up to now, prom-
ising advances have been made with the realization of β-Ga2O3 power
devices such as metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors,9–12
metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors,13–15 modulation-doped
reaching a record average breakdown strength of 5.5 MV/cm,17
maximum breakdown voltage of 8.56 kV,22 and a power figure of
merit as high as 0.9 GW/cm2.23 Furthermore, the development of
high-performance unipolar Schottky barrier diodes24–26 or hetero-
junction diodes27–29 based on β-Ga2O3 is rapidly progressing
showing a power figure of merit up to 13.2 GW/cm2.30
One major key requirement for high performance transistors
based on wide bandgap semiconductors such as β-Ga2O3 is the for-
mation of low ohmic contact resistances in order to reduce conduc-
tion losses inside the devices. This becomes even more important
for RF devices, where the channel resistance is much lower com-
pared to high-voltage devices. The specific contact resistance of the
standard contact metallization system Ti/Au to β-Ga2O3 is typically
in the range of 10−6–10−5 Ω cm2.31 Here, it has to be noted that,

J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41(4) Jul/Aug 2023; doi: 10.1116/6.0002642 41, 043102-1
© Author(s) 2023

apart from the metallization stack, the ohmic contact properties
also strongly depend on the crystal orientation of β-Ga2O3 due to
the anisotropic nature of this material. A comparative study
revealed significantly lower contact resistances of Ti/Au contacts to
β-Ga2O3 in the (100) orientation in contrast to the (010) orienta-
tion.32 This can be explained by the fact that the in situ-formed
Ti-TiOx layer on (100) β-Ga2O3 is much thinner and more homog-
enous than on (010) β-Ga2O3 which is caused by the anisotropic
surface energy and mass diffusity. Nevertheless, improvement of
the contact resistance can be effectively achieved by high n-type
doping of the β-Ga2O3 contact region prior to metal deposition
either using ion implantation16,20 or epitaxial regrowth tech-
niques.15,17 So far, the lowest specific contact resistance with a
value of 8.3 × 10−7 Ω cm2 was achieved by using the latter approach
on (010) β-Ga2O3.33 However, the advantage of ion implantation is
the fact that the process itself is less complex as no hardmask is
needed for local n-type doping. For a long time, Si as a shallow
donor to β-Ga2O3 was the only candidate being investigated for
local n-type doping by implantation reaching decent activation effi-
ciencies beyond 60%.34 Here, the lowest specific contact resistance
with a value of 4.6 × 10−6 Ω cm2 was achieved after annealing at
950 °C. Just recently, a comparative study on the activation of other
implanted shallow donors in (001) β-Ga2O3 was reported showing
efficiencies of 28.2% for Sn, 40.3% for Ge, and 64.7% for Si after
annealing at 925 °C for 30 min in N2.35 The resulting specific
contact resistance for all species was still found to be well above
1 × 10−5 Ω cm2. However, this could be due to the fact that the acti-
vation conditions for Ge and Sn were probably not optimal as no
temperature-dependent analysis of the activation efficiency for
these dopants in β-Ga2O3 has been carried out yet. Moreover, all
these investigations so far focused on annealing temperatures below
1000 °C. In this regard, it has been stated that the implant activa-
tion temperature in general follows a two-thirds rule with respect
to the melting point for most semiconductors.36 This would mean
that the optimum activation temperature of ion implanted β-Ga2O3
should roughly be 1100 °C considering a melting temperature of
around 1800 °C. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the usually
applied annealing conditions below 1000 °C for implanted shallow
donors including Si are ideal for reaching low ohmic contact
resistances.
In this work, a temperature-dependent analysis on the activation
efficiency of Ge in (100) β-Ga2O3 is carried out in order to determine
the optimum annealing conditions for improving ohmic contact prop-
erties. The annealing process involves the use of pulsed rapid thermal
annealing (RTA) at temperatures between 900 and 1200 °C. Our
investigations reveal a significant reduction of the specific contact
resistance after annealing at 1100 °C using 40 pulses to a record value
as low as 4.8 × 10−7 Ω cm2 which is an important step forward to the
realization of highly efficient β-Ga2O3 power devices.
II. EXPERIMENT
The experiments were carried out on epitaxial (100) β-Ga2O3
wafers consisting of Mg-doped semi-insulating substrates prepared
from Czochralski growth with a miscut angle of 4°,4,37 on which a
200 nm thick Si-doped β-Ga2O3 layer was homoepitaxially grown
by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. In this regard, Mg is
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41(4) Jul/Aug 2023; doi: 10.1116/6.0002642
© Author(s) 2023
ARTICLE avs.scitation.org/journal/jva
used as a very efficient compensating acceptor which allows the
realization of semi-insulating substrates.38 The details of the
optimal growth parameters used to grow the films were previously
reported elsewhere.39,40 The layers featured a charge carrier concen-
tration and mobility of 3 × 1017 cm−3 and 123 cm2/(V s), respec-
tively, as extracted from Hall effect measurements. The samples
were then subjected to a multiple energy Ge+ ion implantation
process to obtain a 100 nm box-like profile with an ion concentra-
tion of 5 × 1019 cm−3 using implantation energies of 300, 130, and
60 keV and doses of 5.6 × 1014, 1.4 × 1014, and 6.7 × 1013 cm−2,
respectively. The depth profiles of the Ge+ ions were calculated by
using the TRANSPORT-OF-IONS-IN-MATTER (TRIM) simulation software41
and are shown in Fig. 1. It should be noted that the Mg concentra-
tion in the semi-insulating substrate is roughly around
2 × 1018 cm−3 which is according to the simulation sufficient to
compensate Ge below 200 nm so that the effective thickness of the
Ge-implanted region is 200 nm. The implantation was carried out
on a High Voltage Engineering Europe HVEE implanter from a
germanium oven operated at 1200 °C. Argon was used as support-
ing gas and the ionization potential was 40 keV. The most abun-
dant 74Ge isotope (36%) was chosen. Afterward, Ge+ activation was
carried out using a pulsed rapid thermal annealing (RTA) system
(HQ-Dielectrics Hemera HT). The annealing process involved for
all experiments using the pulsed RTA treatment, a preheating step
at a base temperature of 900 °C for 10 min. Then, this was followed
by pulses up to 1000, 1100, or 1200 °C with a total number of 10 or
40 pulses without a holding phase. The temperature gradient was
15 November 2023 17:43:27
set to 25 K/s in the heating phase and 12 K/s in the cooling phase.
A representative temperature profile for the pulsed RTA treatment
of the Ge+-implanted β-Ga2O3 samples up to 1100 °C is presented
FIG. 1. Simulated depth profiles of the distributed Ge-ions created from the
multiple energy ion implantation into an epitaxial β-Ga2O3 wafer showing the
individual contributions of each energy and the resulting total profile. The epitax-
ial wafer consist of a 200 nm Si-doped β-Ga2O3 layer with a Si donor concentra-
tion of 3 × 1017 cm−3 which were grown on a Mg-doped semi-insulating
β-Ga2O3 substrate with an Mg acceptor concentration of ∼2 × 1018 cm−3.
41, 043102-2

FIG. 2. Representative temperature profile of the implantation activation using
pulsed RTA treatment at 1100 °C using 10 or 40 pulses. The inset shows the
profile for the first five pulses.
in Fig. 2. Subsequently, ohmic contacts for the transfer length
method (TLM) and van der Pauw structures for the Hall measure-
ments are realized by starting with a surface preparation of the
β-Ga2O3 samples in BCl3/Ar-plasma (20 SCCM/10 SCCM) with a
power of 50 W at 1 Pa for 2 min. yielding an etch depth of 10 nm.
Then, lift-off metallization of evaporated Ti/Au (20 nm/130 nm)
was done followed by an RTA step in nitrogen at 470 °C for 60 s.
Finally, interdevice isolation of the TLM and Hall structures was
carried out by multiple energy nitrogen implantation.42 A sche-
matic cross section of the test structures used for electrical charac-
terization is shown in Fig. 3.
The surface morphology of the β-Ga2O3 layers before and
after Ge+ implantation and subsequent pulsed RTA treatment were
analyzed using atomic force microscopy (AFM) (Bruker Dimension
Icon, USA). The electrical characterization started with TLM
FIG. 3. Schematic cross section of the Hall and TLM structures used for electri-
cal characterization.
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41(4) Jul/Aug 2023; doi: 10.1116/6.0002642
© Author(s) 2023
ARTICLE avs.scitation.org/journal/jva
measurements to extract the contact resistivity, sheet resistance, and
specific contact resistance. A total number of at least 30 TLM struc-
tures were measured per each wafer to ensure statistical certainty.
Afterward, Hall effect measurements at room temperature were
carried out, which allowed the calculation of the activation effi-
ciency. Finally, the implantation profile of the Ge+ ions was deter-
mined by secondary ion mass spectrometry performed by RTG
Mikroanalyse GmbH Berlin.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 4 shows the AFM surface topograms of Ge+-implanted
β-Ga2O3 samples which have been annealed at 900 °C for 10 min.
without any pulsing, and after 10 and 40 pulses to 1000, 1100, and
1200 °C as well as an as-grown reference sample without implanta-
tion and thermal treatment. It can be seen that the initial as-grown
β-Ga2O3 layers show very smooth surfaces with the desired step-
flow morphology featuring a root-mean-square (rms) surface
roughness of around 0.3 nm. Although this step-flow morphology
vanishes after ion implantation and subsequent annealing at 900 °C
for 10 min in N2 atmosphere without any additional pulsed RTA
treatment, the value for the surface roughness remains unchanged.
In addition, no significant change in the surface roughness is
observed after pulsed RTA treatment at 1000 and 1100 °C using 10
pulses. However, increasing the number of pulses to 40 results in
an increase of the rms value for the surface roughness of the 1000
and 1100 °C annealed samples to 1.5 and 1.8 nm, respectively.
15 November 2023 17:43:27
Moreover, pulsed RTA treatment at 1200 °C causes a drastic change
in the surface morphology even after only 10 pulses which gets
more pronounced after 40 pulses reaching an rms roughness up to
7.3 nm. This emphasizes that high-temperature pulsing beyond
1100 °C as well as the use of more than 10 pulses leads to signifi-
cant changes in the surface morphology of Ge+-implanted
β-Ga2O3. Here, the fast ramping and the involved thermal stress
which is repeated for several pulses seems to lead to microcleaving
of the (100) surface, which is the easiest cleavage plane. However,
further investigations are necessary to validate this assumption.
The results of the TLM measurements are presented in Fig. 5,
which shows the extracted contact resistivity, sheet resistance, and
specific contact resistance for the as-grown β-Ga2O3 reference
sample as well as the Ge+-implanted and -annealed samples. Here,
it should be noted that the sample annealed with 40 pulses at
1200 °C was highly resistive and not useful for the evaluation. This
might be related to the drastic morphological change observed in
the AFM measurements. The nonimplanted reference sample fea-
tures a contact resistivity, sheet resistance, and specific contact
resistance of around 2 Ω mm, 8.4 kΩ/sq, and 4.9 × 10−6 Ω cm2,
respectively, which is consistent with our previous experiments on
epitaxial β-Ga2O3 wafers with comparable layer properties.43 Up to
now, these already very low contact resistances at such a low
doping concentration without any additional n++-doping using ion
implantation or epitaxial regrowth have only been demonstrated so
far on (100) β-Ga2O3.31 This again emphasizes the strong influence
of the crystal orientation of β-Ga2O3 on the ohmic contact proper-
ties. After Ge+ implantation and annealing at 900 °C for 10 min,
already a significant reduction of the contact resistivity to
1.4 Ω mm and sheet resistance to 2.3 kΩ/sq is observed. Further
41, 043102-3

FIG. 4. AFM measurements of a nonimplanted (a) and Ge-implanted β-Ga2O3
epitaxial wafers annealed at 900 °C for 10 min (b) as well as with additional
RTA pulsing up to 1000 °C (c) and (d), 1100 °C (e) and (f ) and 1200 °C (g)
and (h) using 10 and 40 pulses, respectively.
increase of the annealing temperature and the number of pulses
results in a steady decrease of the contact resistivity, which reaches
its minimum with 0.2 Ω mm using 40 pulses at 1100 °C.
Interestingly, the contact resistivity rises again using 10 pulses at
1200 °C which could be related to the drastic morphological
changes causing the degradation of the ohmic contact interface.
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41(4) Jul/Aug 2023; doi: 10.1116/6.0002642
© Author(s) 2023
ARTICLE avs.scitation.org/journal/jva
15 November 2023 17:43:27
FIG. 5. Overview of the measured contact resistivity (a), sheet resistance (b),
and specific contact resistance (c) as a function of the annealing conditions as
extracted from TLM measurements.
Likewise, the sheet resistance steadily decreases with increasing
annealing temperature and the number of pulses reaching a
minimum of 590 Ω /sq at 1200 °C using 10 pulses. Finally, the spe-
cific contact resistance reaches the lowest value of 4.8 × 10−7 Ω cm2
at 1100 °C using 40 pulses, revealing the optimum annealing condi-
tion in our experiment for low resistance ohmic contact formation.
Besides the fact that this specific contact resistance is one order of
41, 043102-4
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TABLE I. Summary of the room temperature Hall effect measurement data and cal-
culated Ge+ activation efficiency.

Carrier Activation
concentration Mobility efficiency
Sample (cm−3) [cm2/(V s)] (%)
Reference
(nonimplanted) 3 × 1017 123 N/A
900 °C 2.4 × 1018 35 4.8
1000 °C (10 pulses) 2.5 × 1018 42 5
1000 °C (40 pulses) 3.5 × 1018 43 7
1100 °C (10 pulses) 4.6 × 1018 50 9.2
1100 °C (40 pulses) 7.1 × 1018 54 14.2
1200 °C (10 pulses) 9.6 × 1018 58 19.2
1200 °C (40 pulses) N/A N/A N/A

FIG. 6. Ge depth profiles in β-Ga2O3 before and after thermal treatment at

900 °C for 10 min. with additional pulsed RTA treatment at 1100 °C using 40
magnitude lower than what is measured on the reference sample, it pulses.
is indeed a new record value. We speculate that this is the result of
applying the optimum annealing conditions for Ge+-implanted
β-Ga2O3 in combination with the fact that (100) β-Ga2O3 shows as
contact resistivity in our experiments featured a charge carrier con-
already mentioned better properties regarding the ohmic contact
centration of 7.1 × 1018 cm−3 which yields an activation efficiency
formation compared to (010) β-Ga2O3.32 It should be noted that an
of 14.2%.
increase of the number of pulses beyond 40 did not show any
Finally, SIMS measurements of Ge+-implanted (100) β-Ga2O3
further improvement of the electrical properties for all annealing
samples without annealing and with annealing at 1100 °C using 40
temperatures.
pulses were carried out, as shown in Fig. 6 in order to analyze the

15 November 2023 17:43:27

In order to calculate the activation efficiency as a function of
influence of the annealing process on the diffusion of the
the annealing conditions in our experiments, Hall effect measure-
implanted Ge+ ions. Here, it should be noted that the measurement
ments were carried out, which allowed the extraction of the charge
is based on a qualitative analysis since no standard for Ge+ implan-
carrier concentration and mobility. A summary of the measure-
tation into β-Ga2O3 was available. The diagram shows that the
ment data is listed in Table I. Here, it should be noted that we
shape of the implantation profile of the as-implanted sample
assumed a homogeneous distribution of the charge carriers within
matches the calculated profile shown in Fig. 1 with a reasonably
the 200 nm epitaxial layer down to the interface to the Mg-doped
constant Ge concentration down to 100 nm followed by an instant
semi-insulating substrate. However, as can be seen in Fig. 1, the Ge
decrease with a comparable slope. However, after pulsed RTA treat-
concentration shows a drastic nonlinear decrease below a depth of
ment, the profile within the first 100 nm is not constant anymore
100 nm. Therefore, the extracted values for charge carrier concen-
and shows a more distorted shape. This phenomenon has been also
tration and mobility might be slightly underestimated in our analy-
observed during the high-temperature annealing of Si+-implanted
sis. As an outcome of the Hall effect measurements, we can
β-Ga2O3 at 1100 °C and could be explained by a thermal diffusion
conclude that the extracted data are in agreement with the results
process of the implanted species to highly implantation damaged
obtained from TLM measurements. With increasing temperature
regions upon annealing.34 Nevertheless, it is important to note that
and number of pulses, the activated charge carrier concentration
this redistribution of Ge has no negative side effect on the ohmic
increases and thus the activation efficiency. The highest value for
contact properties but quite the opposite, as confirmed by the elec-
the activation efficiency of 19.2% was achieved on the
trical characterizations. Furthermore, the SIMS measurements
Ge+-implanted (100) β-Ga2O3 sample which was annealed using 10
verify no vertical diffusion of Ge into the bulk after annealing,
pulses at 1200 °C. Compared to previous investigations on the Ge+
which is most probably suppressed due to the annealing in N2
implantation and activation in (001) β-Ga2O3,35 this value is rela-
atmosphere.44
tively low, which could either be due to the underestimated calcula-
tions in our Hall effect analysis or the implantation and activation
processes strongly dependent on the crystal orientation of β-Ga2O3. IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The latter would mean that the (001) orientation is much more In this work, we analyzed the optimum annealing conditions
suitable for implantation purposes than the (100) orientation for the activation of Ge-implanted β-Ga2O3 in order to improve
which should be further analyzed in comparative studies in the ohmic contact formation by using annealing temperatures between
future. Moreover, it was not possible to measure the sample 900 and 1200 °C. Our investigations revealed reduced ohmic
annealed at 1200 °C using 40 pulses due to the high resistivity of contact resistances with a record value of 4.8 × 10−7 Ω cm2 after
the material as observed in the TLM measurements. The sample pulsed rapid thermal annealing at 1100 °C using 40 pulses yielding
annealed at 1100 °C using 40 pulses showing the lowest specific an activation efficiency of 14.2%. Annealing at 1200 °C using 10

J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41(4) Jul/Aug 2023; doi: 10.1116/6.0002642 41, 043102-5
© Author(s) 2023
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the high potential of applying high-temperature annealing pro-
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other implanted shallow donors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the colleagues in the process
department at FBH for process technological support, in particular,
Alexander Külberg and Nico Thiele. This work was performed in
the framework of GraFOx, a Leibniz-ScienceCampus partially
funded by the Leibniz association. Furthermore, this work was
funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in
Germany within the Research Project GoNext, Funding No.
16ES1084K and within the “Forschungsfabrik Mikroelektronik
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The authors have no conflicts to disclose.
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J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 41(4) Jul/Aug 2023; doi: 10.1116/6.0002642 41, 043102-7
© Author(s) 2023