Low Dit, thermodynamically stable Ga2O3 -GaAs interfaces: fabrication, characterization, and modeling

Thermodynamically stable, low D_it amorphous Ga₂ O₃-(100) GaAs interfaces have been fabricated by extending molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) related techniques. We have investigated both in situ and ex situ Ga₂O₃ deposition schemes utilizing molecular beams of gallium oxide. The in situ technique employs Ga₂O₃ deposition on freshly grown, atomically ordered (100) GaAs epitaxial films in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV); the ex situ approach is based on thermal desorption of native GaAs oxides in UHV prior to Ga₂O₃ deposition. Unique electronic interface properties have been demonstrated for in situ fabricated Ga₂O₃-GaAs interfaces including a midgap interface state density D_it in the low 10¹⁰ cm^-2 eV^-1 range and an interface recombination velocity S of 4000 cm/s. The existence of strong inversion in both n- and p-type GaAs has been clearly established. We will also discuss the excellent thermodynamic and photochemical interface stability. Ex situ fabricated Ga₂O₃-GaAs interfaces are inferior but still of a high quality with S=9000 cm/s and a corresponding D_it in the upper 10¹⁰ cm^-2 eV^-1 range. We also developed a new numerical heterostructure model for the evaluation of capacitance-voltage (C-V), conductance-voltage (G-V), and photoluminescence (PL) data. The model involves selfconsistent interface analysis of electrical and optoelectronic measurement data and is tailored to the specifics of GaAs such as band-to-band luminescence and long minority carrier response time τ_R. We will further discuss equivalent circuits in strong inversion considering minority carrier generation using low-intensity light illumination