Growth of europium-doped gallium oxide (Ga2O3:Eu) thin films deposited by homemade DC magnetron sputtering

Europium-doped gallium oxide (Ga2O3:Eu) thin films have successfully been grown using direct current magnetron sputtering by means of Eu concentration variation. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy spectra indicate gallium, oxygen, and europium elements as the growing films chemical compositions. Based on scanning electron microscopy images, the morphology of Ga2O3:Eu thin film is seemingly like a granulated nano-size configuration. In this study, UV-visible spectrophotometer results show that the variation of Eu doping concentration inflicted no change toward the optical bandgap of the growing films. The optical bandgaps of undoped Ga2O3 film and Ga2O3: Eu film were seen to be relatively similar, i.e., approximately 3.4 eV. Yet, the presence of Eu doping in Ga2O3 configuration had led to blueshift phenomenon when the concentration was 2% and redshift phenomenon when it was 5%. Photoluminescence emissions of all samples were observed in the red area with the emission peak between 593 and 602 nm.