• Patra, A. K.
• Dash, S.
• Patel, Shiv P.
• Ojha, S.
• Umapathy, G. R.
• Singh, R.

Abstract

<jats:p>In the present work, effect of swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation on structural and optical properties of <jats:italic>β</jats:italic>-Ga<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>O<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> thin films was investigated. Different ion fluences (<jats:italic>ϕ</jats:italic>) of 120 MeV Ag<jats:sup>9+</jats:sup> ions ranging from 1 × 10<jats:sup>11</jats:sup> ions-cm<jats:sup>−2</jats:sup> to 5 × 10<jats:sup>12</jats:sup> ions-cm<jats:sup>−2</jats:sup> were employed. The films were grown at room temperature (RT) using electron beam evaporation method and post-deposition annealing was done at 900 °C in oxygen atmosphere. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV–visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy data confirmed the formation of polycrystalline <jats:italic>β</jats:italic>-Ga<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>O<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> phase having a bandgap of ∼5.14 eV. An increase in the structural disorder, and decrease in the average crystallites size of <jats:italic>β</jats:italic>-Ga<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>O<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> with increasing <jats:italic>ϕ</jats:italic> was also revealed by XRD. Ga<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>O<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> thin films showed high transparency in the UV (upto 280 nm) and visible range with average transmittance of ∼80%. Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) revealed that the thin films were slightly O deficient. A low frequency vibration mode at 170 cm<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> arising from liberation and translation of tetrahedra-octahedra chains in <jats:italic>β</jats:italic>-Ga<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>O<jats:sub>3</jats:sub> was observed through Raman spectroscopy. Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) images suggested that the films were fairly smooth.</jats:p>

Topics

• Deposition
• phase
• scanning electron microscopy
• x-ray diffraction
• thin film
• Oxygen
• annealing
• Raman spectroscopy
• evaporation
• spectrometry
• Rutherford backscattering spectrometry