Photoelectric properties ofβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) thin films annealed at different conditions

In this work,metal–semiconductor–metal solar-blind ultraviolet photoconductors were fabricated based on theβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) thin films which were grown on the c-plane sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy.Then,the effects ofβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) annealing on both its material character-istics and the device photoconductivity were studied.Theβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) thin films were annealed at 800,900,1000,and 1100°C,respectively.Moreover,the annealing time was fixed at 2 h,and the annealing ambients were oxygen,nitro-gen,and vacuum(4.9×10^(-4 )Pa),respectively.The crys-talline quality and texture of theβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) thin films before and after annealing were investigated by X-ray diffraction(XRD),showing that higher annealing temperature can result in a weaker intensity of(402)diffraction peak and a lower device photoresponsivity.Furthermore,the vacuum-annealed sam-ple exhibits the highest photoresponsivity compared with the oxygen-and nitrogen-annealed samples at the same annealing temperature.In addition,the persistent photoconductivity effect is effectively restrained in the oxygen-annealed sample even with the lowest photoresponsivity.