Exploring heteroepitaxial growth and electrical properties of α-Ga2O3 films on differently oriented sapphire substrates

This study explores the epitaxial relationship and electrical properties of alpha-Ga2O3 thin films deposited on a-plane, m-plane, and r-plane sapphire substrates. We characterize the thin films by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, and elucidate thin film epitaxial relationships with the underlying sapphire substrates. The oxygen vacancy concentration of alpha-Ga2O3 thin films on m-plane and r-plane sapphire substrates are higher than alpha-Ga2O3 thin film on a-plane sapphire substrates. All three thin films have a high transmission of over 80% in the visible and near-ultraviolet regions, and their optical bandgaps stay around 5.02-5.16 eV. Hall measurements show that the alpha-Ga2O3 thin film grown on r-plane sapphire has the highest conductivity of 2.71 S/cm, which is at least 90 times higher than the film on a-plane sapphire. A similar orientation-dependence is seen in their activation energy as revealed by temperature-dependent conductivity measurements, with 0.266, 0.079, and 0.075 eV for the film on a-, m-, r-plane, respectively. The origin of the distinct transport behavior of films on differently oriented substrates is suggested to relate with the distinct evolution of oxygen vacancies at differently oriented substrates. This study provides insights for the substrate selection when growing alpha-Ga2O3 films with tunable transport properties.