A compact route for efficient production of high-purity β-Ga_(2)O_(3) powder

The present study has proposed a compact process for the production of high-purity β-Ga_(2)O_(3)powder by simply using gallium metal and water as the raw materials.The process basically consists of two essential steps including hydrothermal synthesis of Ga OOH and calcination of Ga OOH for the production of the target product of β-Ga_(2)O_(3).Thermodynamic evaluation and systematic experiments were conducted for process parameter optimization.X-ray diffractometer(XRD),scanning electron microscopy(SEM),thermogravimetryDdifferential scanning calorimetry(TG-DSC)and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)were utilized to clarify the reaction mechanisms of the hydrothermal synthesis and transformation of Ga OOH to β-Ga_(2)O_(3)by calcination.Chemical analysis of the final product of β-Ga_(2)O_(3)obtained under the optimal conditions was carried out with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry(ICP-MS),and the results showed that the contents of the representative impurities such as Ni,Cu,In,Mn,Co,Zn and Cr are obviously lower than the requirement of 5N β-Ga_(2)O_(3)standard,exhibiting excellent application prospect of the proposed process to produce high-purity β-Ga_(2)O_(3).