Defect states and their electric field-enhanced electron thermal emission in heavily Zr-doped beta-Ga2O3 crystals

TL;DR

This study investigates defect levels in Zr-doped beta-Ga2O3 crystals using DLTS, revealing how electric fields influence defect emission rates and identifying defect signatures at various doping levels.

Contribution

It provides new insights into defect states and their electric field-enhanced emission in heavily Zr-doped beta-Ga2O3, emphasizing the importance of field effects in defect characterization.

Findings

Identification of defect levels at various doping concentrations.

Demonstration of electric field-enhanced emission rates.

Correlation of defect signatures with doping levels and electric fields.

Abstract

Performing deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) on Schottky diodes, we investigated defect levels below the conduction band minima (Ec) in Czochralski (CZ) grown unintentionally-doped (UID) and vertical gradient freeze (VGF)-grown Zr-doped beta-Ga2O3 crystals. In UID crystals with an electron concentration of 10^17 cm-3, we observe levels at 0.18 eV and 0.46 eV in addition to the previously reported 0.86 (E2) and 1.03 eV (E3) levels. For 10^18 cm-3 Zr-doped Ga2O3, signatures at 0.30 eV (E15) and 0.71 eV (E16) are present. For the highest Zr doping of 5*10^18 cm-3, we observe only one signature at 0.59 eV. Electric field-enhanced emission rates are demonstrated via increasing the reverse bias during measurement. The 0.86 eV signature in the UID sample displays phonon-assisted tunneling enhanced thermal emission and is consistent with the widely reported E2 (FeGa) defect. The 0.71 eV (E16) signature in the lower-Zr-doped crystal also exhibits phonon-assisted tunneling emission enhancement. Taking into account that the high doping in the Zr-doped diodes also increases the electric field, we propose that the 0.59 eV signature in the highest Zr-doped sample likely corresponds to the 0.71 eV signature in lower-doped samples. Our analysis highlights the importance of testing for and reporting on field-enhanced emission especially the electric field present during DLTS and other characterization experiments on beta-Ga2O3 along with the standard emission energy, cross-section, and lambda-corrected trap density. This is important because of the intended use of beta-Ga2O3 in high-field devices and the many orders of magnitude of possible doping.