LAUSR

Beta gallium oxide (Ga2O3) has received much attention recently as a viable candidate for the nextgeneration material for power electronics and photonic applications, with its unique advantages, such as the wide bandgap (~ 4.9 eV), high breakdown voltage, and optical transparency up to UV range. Recent advances in high quality Ga2O3 thin film growth, such as using molecular beam epitaxy or chemical vapor deposition, combined with the material’s availability as inexpensive bulk substrates have opened new exciting opportunities for the fabrication of novel Ga2O3 devices. Despite the advances, many of the fundamental properties of Ga2O3 are yet to be understood clearly. As in many other oxide-based transparent semiconductors, point defects and their complexes can dictate the properties of Ga2O3. Various spectroscopic methods as well as theoretical calculations have provided useful insights on the nature of the point defects and complexes in Ga2O3. Regardless, what has been missing in the field is the detailed information on the atomic scale structure of the defects and complexes in Ga2O3. Such information is crucial to determine how the atomic scale defects relate to many of the unanswered questions regarding the unique properties of Ga2O3, including how point defects and impurity atoms influence the formation of trap states, how the dopant atoms are compensated, and what is the exact origin of the difficulty in doping of Ga2O3 (especially p-type).