β-phase gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is an emerging ultrawide bandgap (UWBG) semiconductor (E G ∼ 4.8 eV), which promises generational improvements in the performance and manufacturing cost over today’s commercial wide bandgap power electronics based on GaN and SiC. However, overheating has been identified as a major bottleneck to the performance and commercialization of Ga2O3 device technologies. In this work, a novel Ga2O3/4H-SiC composite wafer with high heat transfer performance and an epi-ready surface finish has been developed using a fusion-bonding method. By taking advantage of low-temperature metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy, a Ga2O3 epitaxial layer was successfully grown on the composite wafer while maintaining the structural integrity of the composite wafer without causing interface damage. An atomically smooth homoepitaxial film with a room-temperature Hall mobility of ∼94 cm2/Vs and a volume charge of ∼3 × 1017 cm–3 was achieved at a growth temperature of 600 °C. Phonon transport across the Ga2O3/4H-SiC interface has been studied using frequency-domain thermoreflectance and a differential steady-state thermoreflectance approach. Scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis suggests that phonon transport across the Ga2O3/4H-SiC interface is dominated by the thickness of the SiN x bonding layer and an unintentionally formed SiO x interlayer. Extrinsic effects that impact the thermal conductivity of the 6.5 μm thick Ga2O3 layer were studied via time-domain thermoreflectance. Thermal simulation was performed to estimate the improvement of the thermal performance of a hypothetical single-finger Ga2O3 metal–semiconductor field-effect transistor fabricated on the composite substrate. This novel power transistor topology resulted in a ∼4.3× reduction in the junction-to-package device thermal resistance. Furthermore, an even more pronounced cooling effect is demonstrated when the composite wafer is implemented into the device design of practical multifinger devices. These innovations in device-level thermal management give promise to the full exploitation of the promising benefits of the UWBG material, which will lead to significant improvements in the power density and efficiency of power electronics over current state-of-the-art commercial devices.

We report on the first demonstration of metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy-regrown (MOVPE) ohmic contacts in an all MOVPE-grown β-Ga 2 O 3 metal semiconductor field effect transistor (MESFET). The low-temperature (600 °C) heavy (n + ) Si-doped regrown layers exhibit extremely high conductivity with a sheet resistance of 73 Ω/□ and a record low metal/n + -Ga 2 O 3 contact resistance of 80 mΩ•mm and specific contact resistivity of 8.3 × 10 −7 Ω•cm 2 were achieved. The fabricated MESFETs exhibit a maximum ON current of 130 mA mm −1 and a high I ON /I OFF ratio of >10 10 . Thermal characterization was also performed to assess the device self-heating under the high current and power conditions.

Radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based on Al1–x Sc x N are replacing AlN-based devices because of their higher achievable bandwidths, suitable for the fifth-generation (5G) mobile network. However, overheating of Al1–x Sc x N film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs) used in RF MEMS filters limits power handling and thus the phone’s ability to operate in an increasingly congested RF environment while maintaining its maximum data transmission rate. In this work, the ramifications of tailoring of the piezoelectric response and microstructure of Al1–x Sc x N films on the thermal transport have been studied. The thermal conductivity of Al1–x Sc x N films (3–8 W m–1 K–1) grown by reactive sputter deposition was found to be orders of magnitude lower than that for c-axis-textured AlN films due to alloying effects. The film thickness dependence of the thermal conductivity suggests that higher frequency FBAR structures may suffer from limited power handling due to exacerbated overheating concerns. The reduction of the abnormally oriented grain (AOG) density was found to have a modest effect on the measured thermal conductivity. However, the use of low AOG density films resulted in lower insertion loss and thus less power dissipated within the resonator, which will lead to an overall enhancement of the device thermal performance.

We report polycrystalline diamond epitaxial growth on β-Ga2O3 for device-level thermal management. We focused on establishing diamond growth conditions on β-Ga2O3 accompanying the study of various nucleation strategies. A growth window was identified, yielding uniform-coalesced films while maintaining interface smoothness. In this first demonstration of diamond growth on β-Ga2O3, a diamond thermal conductivity of 110 ± 33 W m−1 K−1 and a diamond/β-Ga2O3 thermal boundary resistance of 30.2 ± 1.8 m2K G−1 W−1 were measured. The film stress was managed by growth optimization techniques preventing delamination of the diamond film. This work marks the first significant step towards device-level thermal management of β-Ga2O3 electronic devices.

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