Ultra-wide band gap semiconductor devices based on β-phase
gallium oxide (Ga2O3) offer the potential to
achieve higher switching performance and efficiency and lower manufacturing
cost than that of today’s wide band gap power electronics.
However, the most critical challenge to the commercialization of Ga2O3 electronics is overheating, which impacts the
device performance and reliability. We fabricated a Ga2O3/4H–SiC composite wafer using a fusion-bonding
method. A low-temperature (≤600 °C) epitaxy and device
processing scheme was developed to fabricate MOSFETs on the composite
wafer. The low-temperature-grown epitaxial Ga2O3 devices deliver high thermal performance (56% reduction in channel
temperature) and a power figure of merit of (∼300 MW/cm2), which is the highest among heterogeneously integrated Ga2O3 devices reported to date. Simulations calibrated
based on thermal characterization results of the Ga2O3-on-SiC MOSFET reveal that a Ga2O3/diamond
composite wafer with a reduced Ga2O3 thickness
(∼1 μm) and a thinner bonding interlayer (<10 nm)
can reduce the device thermal impedance to a level lower than that
of today’s GaN-on-SiC power switches.