Remote plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition of gallium oxide thin films with NH3 plasma pretreatment

High quality gallium oxide (Ga2O3) thin films are deposited by remote plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (RPEALD) with trimethylgallium (TMG) and oxygen plasma as precursors. By introducing in-situ NH3 plasma pretreatment on the substrates, the deposition rate of Ga2O3 films on Si and GaN are remarkably enhanced, reached to 0.53 and 0.46 Å/cycle at 250 °C, respectively. The increasing of deposition rate is attributed to more hydroxyls (–OH) generated on the substrate surfaces after NH3 pretreatment, which has no effect on the stoichiometry and surface morphology of the oxide films, but only modifies the surface states of substrates by enhancing reactive site density. Ga2O3 film deposited on GaN wafer is crystallized at 250 °C, with an epitaxial interface between Ga2O3 and GaN clearly observed. This is potentially very important for reducing the interface state density through high quality passivation.