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F. Zhou,1,2 H. H. Gong,1,2 Z. P. Wang,1,2 W. Z. Xu,1,2 X. X. Yu,1 Y. Yang,1 F.-F. Ren,1,2 S. L. Gu,1 R. Zhang,1
Y. D. Zheng, H. Lu,1,2,a) and J. D. Ye1,a)
1
AFFILIATIONS
1
School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
2
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Note: This paper is part of the APL Special Collection on Wide- and Ultrawide-Bandgap Electronic Semiconductor Devices.
a)
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed: hailu@nju.edu.cn and yejd@nju.edu.cn
ABSTRACT
Baliga’s figure of merit (BFOM ¼ BV2/Ron,sp), which is the critical technological bottleneck of p-type Ga2O3.26 Benefiting from the con-
trade-off between the breakdown voltage (BV) and the specific on- struction of the p–n depletion region in reverse bias and the bipolar
resistance (Ron,sp),1 has been extensively discussed as the most objective carrier injection in forward conduction, a high BV of 1.37 kV and a
and impartial criterion for a semiconductor material to justify its suit- low Ron,sp of 2.6 mXcm2 were achieved simultaneously in the Ga2O3
ability in power switching applications.2–18 As an emerging ultra-wide p–n HJDs, thus yielding a BFOM of 0.72 GW/cm2.8 More importantly,
bandgap semiconductor material, b-Ga2O3 inherently possesses enor- it is found that the turn-on voltage (Von) of the device is only 1.73 V,8
mous advantages for realizing a high BFOM, thanks to its high break- which is smaller than that of the GaN p–n diode (3.1 V),25 thereby
down electric field (>8 MV/cm) and decent electron mobility (200 cm2/ contributing to a low conduction loss in power operation. Despite
V s).19–22 Based on such superior material properties, tremendous these inspiring performances, the development of the Ga2O3 HJDs is
endeavors have been devoted, and significant advancements have been still at an early stage. In particular, the premature breakdown of the
achieved in the Ga2O3-based power rectifiers,7 enabling a high BV of HJDs suffers from severe electric field crowding effects at the vertical
2.44 kV (Ref. 23) or a low Ron,sp of 0.32 mX cm2.14 However, due to the heterojunction mesa edge.8,27 As a result, the BV of the current Ga2O3
inevitable design compromise between the BV and Ron,sp,1 the BFOMs HJDs has rarely reached above 1.5 kV (Refs. 11 and 12) or even
of most reported Ga2O3 power rectifiers are still lower than 1.5 GW/ 460 V in the large-area devices.8 The implementation of bevel mesa
cm2,7,14 which is well below the theoretical prediction material limit23,24 terminations is a popular approach to enhance the reverse blocking
and far from that of the GaN counterpart (13.5 GW/cm2).25 capability, whereas troublesome dry etching inevitably introduces
To fully utilize the material potential toward a high BFOM, the plasma damage to the etched interface, curbing the effectiveness of
rational design of NiO/Ga2O3 p–n bipolar heterojunction diodes bevel electrical field managements.9,18
(HJDs) has been demonstrated as a very promising strategy to realize In this work, by the selective growth of p-NiO upon the n-Ga2O3
the advanced bipolar rectifiers,7,11,12 which alternatively overcomes the layer without any etching damage, we demonstrate beveled-mesa
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 262103 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0071280 119, 262103-1
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
NiO/b-Ga2O3 HJDs with superior performance, including a high BV completed by the deposition of a Ni/Au metal stack (300/300 nm) to
of 2.04 kV and a low Ron,sp of 2.26 (1.45) mXcm2 from DC (pulsed) form the anode contact, which also serves as the Schottky contact for
measurements, thereby yielding a high BFOM of 1.84 (2.87) GW/cm2 the Schottky barrier diode (SBD) device.
in a large-area (1-mm2) NiO/Ga2O3 HJD. Furthermore, the Ga2O3 As determined from the cross-sectional scanning electron
HJD shows good rectifying behaviors and thermal stability even at microscopy (SEM) image of the device in Fig. 1(b), the bevel angle of
200 C. In particular, it demonstrated a strong reverse voltage blocking the p-NiO films is confirmed to be about approximately 6 . The
capability with an ultra-low leakage current of <0.1 lA up to 1.5 kV at 300-nm-thick NiO bottom-layer and a 100-nm-thick upper-layer,
25 C, which is highly desirable for high-voltage switching operation, which were simultaneously grown on the Fe-doped b-Ga2O3 insulat-
as verified under extreme operating conditions of 800 V/10 A. All ing substrate with Ar/O2 gas flux ratios of 20:1 and 2:1,28 exhibit hole
these findings clearly imply the notable potential of the Ga2O3 HJDs concentrations and mobilities of 5.8 1017 cm3 and 0.87 cm2/V s
for high-power, high-efficiency, and high-temperature applications. and 2.3 1019 cm3 and 0.34 cm2/V s, respectively, obtained by room-
Figure 1(a) shows the cross-sectional schematic of the NiO/b- temperature Hall measurements. The origin of the achieved high hole
Ga2O3 bipolar HJD with small-angle (6 ) beveled mesa termination. concentration was believed to be due to the formation of Ni3þ from
The epitaxial structure was grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy Ni2þ near Ni vacancies by reaction with excess oxygen atoms, thus
(HVPE) on a conductive Sn-doped (001)-oriented b-Ga2O3 substrate, creating holes localized on the Ni sites with an acceptable mobility.30,31
consisting of a 10-lm Si-doped b-Ga2O3 drift layer with an electron Furthermore, the built-in potential (Vbi) of the NiO/Ga2O3 p–n heter-
concentration of 2 1016 cm3. The device fabrication commenced ojunction is determined to be 2.5 V via capacitance–voltage (C–V)
with the deposition of the back-side Ohmic contact of Ti/Au (20/ measurements [Fig. 1(c)].29 Similar to the previously reported
80 nm) by electron beam evaporation (EBE) and then rapidly annealed results,11 the conduction band offset (DEC) and valence band offset
at 500 C in nitrogenambient for 1 min.8 Subsequently, by using a (DEV) are evaluated to be 1.2 and 2.0 eV, respectively, and type-II
multi-hole square-shaped shadow mask with a pitch of 1 mm, “staggered” band alignment is identified,27 as shown in Fig. 1(d). For
400-nm-thick double-layered p-NiO films with 6 bevel angle were comparison, 1-mm2 Ni/b-Ga2O3 SBDs and conventional steep-mesa
deposited on the Ga2O3 epitaxial layer by the radio frequency (RF) (90 ) Ga2O3 HJDs are also fabricated on the same wafer by similar
magnetron sputtering technique.27 During the sputtering process,28 processes.27 The fabricated devices were encapsulated in a standard
the substrate was rotated moderately at 4 rpm to enhance the film uni- TO-220 package.32
Figures 2(a) and 2(b) show the forward DC–voltage (I–V) charac-
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 262103 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0071280 119, 262103-2
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
FIG. 2. (a) Log-scale DC–voltage (I–V) curves and the extracted ideality factors of the Ga2O3 HJD and SBD. (b) Linear-scale I–V characteristics and the corresponding Ron,sp. 13 November 2023 06:35:42
(c) Pulsed I–V curves and Ron,sp. (d) Comparison of Ron,sp and the maximum current density of the state-of-the-art Ga2O3 rectifiers. T-dependent forward conduction character-
istics of (e) HJD and (f) SBD.
bipolar structure certainly inspires further investigations. Nevertheless, collapse may be primarily caused by the self-heating effect rather than
its low Ron,sp achieved under DC (pulsed) conditions is comparable carrier trapping, and the degradation of Ron,sp leads to a remarkable
with the best prior reports [Fig. 2(d)], especially under high tempera- increase in the conduction loss [Fig. 2(f)].39
ture (T) conditions. With elevated T from 25 C to 200 C,38 the HJD Figure 3(a) shows the reverse I–V characteristics of the Ga2O3
exhibits an enhanced current capability with a considerable reduction HJD and SBD. Apparently, the leakage current (IR) of the beveled-
in Ron,sp [Fig. 2(e)]. In contrast, for Ga2O3 SBDs, severe current mesa (6 ) HJD was greatly suppressed to <0.1 lA at 1 kV, over three
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 262103 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0071280 119, 262103-3
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
FIG. 3. (a) Reverse I–V characteristics of the beveled-mesa HJD and conventional
HJD and SBD. (b) Benchmark of Ron vs BV. (c) Simulated electric field distribution
of the HJD with different bevel angles. (d) T-dependent reverse blocking character-
istics of the two devices.
Appl. Phys. Lett. 119, 262103 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0071280 119, 262103-4
Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing
Applied Physics Letters ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/apl
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