We report a demonstration of single-crystal gallium oxide (Ga2O3) metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs). A Sn-doped Ga2O3 layer was grown on a semi-insulating β-Ga2O3 (010) substrate by molecular-beam epitaxy. We fabricated a circular MESFET with a gate length of 4 μm and a source–drain spacing of 20 μm. The device showed an ideal transistor action represented by the drain current modulation due to the gate voltage (VGS) swing. A complete drain current pinch-off characteristic was also obtained for VGS < −20 V, and the three-terminal off-state breakdown voltage was over 250 V. A low drain leakage current of 3 μA at the off-state led to a high on/off drain current ratio of about 10 000. These device characteristics obtained at the early stage indicate the great potential of Ga2O3-based electrical devices for future power device applications.

This is a review article on the current status and future prospects of the research and development on gallium oxide (Ga 2 O 3 ) power devices. Ga 2 O 3 possesses excellent material properties, in particular for power device applications. It is also attractive from an industrial viewpoint since large-size, high-quality wafers can be manufactured from a single-crystal bulk synthesized by melt-growth methods. These two features have drawn much attention to Ga 2 O 3 as a new wide bandgap semiconductor following SiC and GaN. In this review, we describe the recent progress in the research and development on fundamental technologies of Ga 2 O 3 devices, covering single-crystal bulk and wafer production, homoepitaxial thin film growth by molecular beam epitaxy and halide vapor phase epitaxy, as well as device processing and characterization of metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors, metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors and Schottky barrier diodes.

β-Ga2O3 bulk crystals were grown by the edge-defined film-fed growth (EFG) process and the floating zone process. Semiconductor substrates containing no twin boundaries with sizes up to 4 in. in diameter were fabricated. It was found that Si was the main residual impurity in the EFG-grown crystals and that the effective donor concentration (N d − N a) of unintentionally doped crystals was governed by the Si concentration. Intentional n-type doping was shown to be possible. An etch pit observation revealed that the dislocation density was on the order of 103 cm−3. N d − N a for the samples annealed in nitrogen ambient was almost the same as the Si concentration, while for the samples annealed in oxygen ambient, it was around 1 × 1017 cm−3 and independent of the Si concentration.

N-type Ga2O3 homoepitaxial thick films were grown on β-Ga2O3(010) substrates by ozone molecular beam epitaxy. The epitaxial growth rate was increased by more than ten times by changing from the (100) plane to the (010) plane. The carrier concentration of the epitaxial layers could be varied within the range of 1016–1019 cm-3 by changing the Sn doping concentration. Platinum Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) on 1.4-µm-thick β-Ga2O3 homoepitaxial layers were demonstrated for the first time. The SBDs exhibited a reverse breakdown voltage of 100 V, an on-resistance of 2 mΩ cm2, and a forward voltage of 1.7 V (at 200 A/cm2).

Single-crystal gallium oxide (Ga 2 O 3) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors were fabricated on a semi-insulating b-Ga 2 O 3 (010) substrate. A Sn-doped n-Ga 2 O 3 channel layer was grown by molecular-beam epitaxy. Si-ion implantation doping was performed to source and drain electrode regions for obtaining low-resistance ohmic contacts. An Al 2 O 3 gate dielectric film formed by atomic layer deposition passivated the device surface and significantly reduced gate leakage. The device with a gate length of 2 lm showed effective gate modulation of the drain current with an extremely low off-state drain leakage of less than a few pA/mm, leading to a high drain current on/off ratio of over ten orders of magnitude. A three-terminal off-state breakdown voltage of 370 V was achieved. Stable transistor operation was sustained at temperatures up to 250 C. V