Sensitive direct converting thin film x-ray detector utilizing <i>β</i>-Ga2O3 fabricated via MOCVD

Ga2O3 has been considered as one of the most suitable materials for x-ray detection, but its x-ray detection performance is still at a low level due to the limitation of its quality and absorbance, especially for hard x-ray. In this work, the effects of growth temperature and miscut angle of the sapphire substrate on the crystal quality of Ga2O3 thin films were investigated based on the MOCVD technique. It was found that the crystal growth mode was transformed from island growth to step-flow growth using miscut sapphire substrates and increasing growth temperature, which was accompanied by the improvement of the crystal quality and the reduction of the density of trapped states. Ga2O3 films with optimal crystal quality were finally prepared on a 4° miscut substrate at 900 °C. The x-ray detector based on this film shows good hard x-ray response with a sensitivity of 3.72 × 105μC·Gyair−1·cm−2. Furthermore, the impacts of Ga2O3 film crystal quality and trap density on the x-ray detector were investigated in depth, and the mechanism of the photoconductive gain of the Ga2O3 thin-film x-ray detector was analyzed.