Welcoming Remarks

Gallium oxide is an emerging ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor with a bandgap of 4.5-4.9eV and applications in solar blind UV detection and power electronics. The main factor limiting Ga₂O₃ technology so far is the unavailability of p-type Ga₂O₃, but recent advances have shown a promising future for developments in p-type Ga₂O₃. In the advent of p-type conductivity, minority carrier transport will be of primary importance as the minority carrier diffusion length defines the performance of bipolar devices. One of the major issues in the current ZnO and GaN device technology, is the low diffusion length of minority carriers. It has been previously shown that in p-type GaN and ZnO, which are both wide bandgap semiconductors, electron injection either with an electron beam or forward bias, results in significant increase in minority carrier diffusion length^{1, 2}. Similar effects have been very recently observed in Ga₂O₃ subjected to electron beam irradiation³. An increase in the diffusion length directly correlates to the device performance for bipolar devices. In this study, we explore the impact of electron injection on the minority carrier transport, in particular, minority carrier diffusion length (L) and carrier lifetime in Ga₂O₃ devices. The viability of this effect is probed regarding ‘healing’ the radiation damage incurred by the wide bandgap sensors and devices exposed to hazardous radiation in lower Earth satellite orbits.

1. Burdett, W. C., O. Lopatiuk, A. Osinsky, S. J. Pearton, and L. Chernyak, The optical signature of electron injection in p-(Al)GaN. Superlattice Microst. 2004, 34, 55-62.
2. Lopatiuk-Tirpak, O.; Chernyak, L.; Xiu, F. X.; Liu, J. L.; Jang, S.; Ren, F.; Pearton, S. J.; Gartsman, K.; Feldman, Y.; Osinsky, A.; Chow, P., Studies of minority carrier diffusion length increase in p-type ZnO : Sb. J. Appl. Phys. 2006, 100 (8), 3.
3. Modak, S.; Lee, J.; Chernyak, L.; Yang, J.; Ren, F.; Pearton, S. J.; Khodorov, S.; Lubomirsky, I., Electron injection-induced effects in Si-doped β-Ga2O3. AIP Advances 2019, 9 (1), 015127.