Issue 7, 2025

First principles investigation of electron mobility enhancement of β-Ga2O3 doped with indium

Abstract

β-Ga2O3 is one of the new-generation wide-bandgap semiconductor materials that has attracted much attention in recent years. However, the reported room-temperature electron mobility of β-Ga2O3 is much lower than GaN and SiC. Alloying Ga2O3 is expected to endow the material with superior carrier transport properties. Herein, we mainly investigate the electron mobility of pure Ga2O3, In-doped Ga2O3, and Al-doped Ga2O3 from first-principles considering acoustic deformation potential (ADP) scattering, polar optical phonon (POP) scattering and ionized impurity (IMP) scattering. The structure optimization, electronic band structure, and temperature-dependent and concentration-dependent electron mobility are investigated. The results show that the mobility of In–Ga2O3 is always the highest at 105–650 K, and POP scattering is the dominant factor limiting the electron mobility from 150–650 K. The mobility enhancement by In-doping is attributed to the smaller effective mass caused by the In 5s state despite its slightly increased electron–phonon coupling strength. The predicted electron mobilities for Ga2O3, Al–Ga2O3 and In–Ga2O3 at an electron concentration of 1.0 × 1017 cm−3 are 151.5 cm2 V−1 s−1, 137.8 cm2 V−1 s−1 and 184.9 cm2 V−1 s−1 at room temperature, respectively. This work provides an alternative route to enhance the electron mobility of Ga2O3 and guides in engineering their electronic transport properties for high-power electronics.

Graphical abstract: First principles investigation of electron mobility enhancement of β-Ga2O3 doped with indium

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Nov 2024
Accepted
02 Jan 2025
First published
22 Jan 2025
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2025,27, 3988-3996

First principles investigation of electron mobility enhancement of β-Ga2O3 doped with indium

L. Zhang, J. Huang, Y. Shen, F. Liu, P. Zhang, D. Wang, K. Wu and Y. Wei, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2025, 27, 3988 DOI: 10.1039/D4CP04220D

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