Effects of Neutron Irradiation on Electrical Performance of beta-Ga2O3 Schottky Barrier Diodes

The effect of neutron irradiation on the electrical performance of the beta-Ga2O3 Schottky barrier diode (SBD) device has been studied in this work. After equivalent 1 MeV neutron irradiation with a fluence of 1 x 10(14) n/cm(2), a 20% decrease in the forward current density (J(F)), a 75% reduction in the reverse current density (J(R)), and a 300 V increase in the breakdown voltage (V-br) have been observed according to current-voltage (I-V) measurements. Utilizing the frequency-dependent conductance technique, it is found that the density of interface states located at Pt/Ga2O3 increases slightly from 2.6 x 10(12)-6.4 x 10(12) to 2.9 x 10(12)-7.0 x 10(12) cm(-2)eV(-1) with an increase in trap activation energy from 0.09-0.122 to 0.096-0.134 eV after neutron irradiation. Furthermore, based on the capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurement, it is observed that the carrier concentration across the Ga2O3 drift layer was decreased from 1.80 x 10(16) to 1.35 x 10(16) cm(-3) after neutron irradiation. Considering the device performance change, it indicates that the bulk traps within the Ga2O3 drift layer instead of interface states dominate the device degradation.