Indium Gallium Oxide Alloys: Electronic Structure, Optical Gap, Surface Space Charge, and Chemical Trends within Common-Cation Semiconductors

Jack E N Swallow; Robert G Palgrave; Philip A E Murgatroyd; Anna Regoutz; Michael Lorenz; Anna Hassa; Marius Grundmann; Holger von Wenckstern; Joel B Varley; Tim D Veal

doi:10.1021/acsami.0c16021

Indium Gallium Oxide Alloys: Electronic Structure, Optical Gap, Surface Space Charge, and Chemical Trends within Common-Cation Semiconductors

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Jan 20;13(2):2807-2819. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c16021. Epub 2021 Jan 11.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy and Department of Physics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZF, U.K.
² Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, U.K.
³ Department of Chemistry, University College London, 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K.
⁴ Felix Bloch Institute for Solid State Physics, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
⁵ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, United States.

PMID: 33426870
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c16021

Abstract

The electronic and optical properties of (In_xGa_1-x)₂O₃ alloys are highly tunable, giving rise to a myriad of applications including transparent conductors, transparent electronics, and solar-blind ultraviolet photodetectors. Here, we investigate these properties for a high quality pulsed laser deposited film which possesses a lateral cation composition gradient (0.01 ≤ x ≤ 0.82) and three crystallographic phases (monoclinic, hexagonal, and bixbyite). The optical gaps over this composition range are determined, and only a weak optical gap bowing is found (b = 0.36 eV). The valence band edge evolution along with the change in the fundamental band gap over the composition gradient enables the surface space-charge properties to be probed. This is an important property when considering metal contact formation and heterojunctions for devices. A transition from surface electron accumulation to depletion occurs at x ∼ 0.35 as the film goes from the bixbyite In₂O₃ phase to the monoclinic β-Ga₂O₃ phase. The electronic structure of the different phases is investigated by using density functional theory calculations and compared to the valence band X-ray photoemission spectra. Finally, the properties of these alloys, such as the n-type dopability of In₂O₃ and use of Ga₂O₃ as a solar-blind UV detector, are understood with respect to other common-cation compound semiconductors in terms of simple chemical trends of the band edge positions and the hydrostatic volume deformation potential.

Keywords: XPS; chemical trends; gallium oxide; indium gallium oxide; indium oxide.