Investigation of β-Gallium oxide based tunnel field effect phototransistor for solar blind UV detection

Abstract

In this study, a novel β-Ga2O3 based Tunnel field effect phototransistor (Ga2O3-TFET) has been explored and proposed for detection of solar blind UV radiations. β-Ga2O3 owes the advantage of being an effective photoabsorber material for detecting solar blind radiations and rejecting wavelengths outside this range under the application of high voltage requirements. Hence, for the first time β-Ga2O3 along with TFET has been investigated to reduce the required bias voltages with steep switching characteristics from dark state to illuminated state and ultrahigh photoresponsivity. Moreover, Thickness optimization of Ga2O3 plays a vital role for the proposed phototransistor since the photogeneration inside the Ga2O3 develops an effective optical voltage for the operation of the device. Consequently, small dark current of (8.9310−16 A/µm), less required bias voltage (1.19 V), ultrahigh photosensitivity (1.17 ×1011), high responsivity (1.046 ×105 A/W) and detectivity (2.01 ×1017 Jones) at an optimized thickness of 90 nm has been observed. The dynamic characteristics of the proposed phototransistor show a low response time of 5 ms that would promote its development for detection of solar blind UV radiation.