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Deep Donor Behavior of Iron in β-Ga2O3 Crystals: Establishing the Fe4+/3+ Level

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2020

Abstract

The Fe4+/3+ donor level is experimentally determined to be 0.70 eV (±0.05 eV) above the valence band maximum in β-Ga2O3. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) is used to monitor Fe3+ ions that are unintentionally present in an Mg-doped β-Ga2O3 crystal (with a low Fermi level). For temperatures near 255 K, exposure to 325 nm laser light converts a portion of the Fe3+ ions to Fe4+ and Fe2+ ions and, at the same time, forms neutral magnesium acceptors (Mg0Ga) and neutral Ir donors (Ir3+). After removing the light, the intensity of the Fe3+ EPR spectrum has a significant additional decrease as holes thermally released to the valence band from rapidly decaying neutral Mg acceptors are trapped at Fe3+ ions and form even more Fe4+ ions. This demonstrates that the Mg0/- acceptor level, near 0.65 eV, is closer to the valence band than the Fe4+/3+ level. Following the fast initial post-light decrease, the Fe3+ spectrum then slowly recovers as Fe4+ ions are destroyed by electrons thermally excited from the valence band. An activation energy for the thermal decay of the Fe4+ donors, and thus a value for the Fe4+/3+ level, is obtained from the analysis of five Fe3+ isothermal recovery curves taken from the Mg-doped crystal between 250 and 270 K. A first-order kinetics model is used, as minimal retrapping is observed. In separate experiments, EPR shows that Fe4+ ions are also produced in an Fe-doped β-Ga2O3 crystal (without Mg acceptors) during exposures to laser light at temperatures near 255 K. Abstract © 2020 Author(s).

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© 2020 Authors, published under an exclusive license with American Institute of Physics.

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This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in volume 128 of Journal of Applied Physics as cited and linked below.

Plain-text title: Deep donor behavior of iron in β-Ga 2 O 3 crystals: Establishing the Fe 4+/3+ level.

Funding note: The present work was funded in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Award No. F4FGA08054J003.

Source Publication

Journal of Applied Physics

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