High mobility of intrinsic defects in α-Ga2O3

Migration properties of the intrinsic defects were investigated in α-Ga2O3 by controllable introduction of the lattice disorder with ion irradiation and monitoring its evolution as a function of ion dose, flux, and temperature. Already the dose dependence acquired at room temperature suggested prominently high mobility of intrinsic defects in α-Ga2O3, since we observed two distinct disordered regions—near the surface and in the bulk—instead of a Gaussian shape following the ballistic defects production process. Moreover, the disorder accumulation has shown to be highly sensitive to the variation of the ion flux and temperature, known in the literature as the dose-rate effect. Therefore, by monitoring the process as a function of the flux and temperature, we observed such dose-rate effect in α-Ga2O3 with an activation energy of 0.33 ± 0.04 eV, which we attributed to the migration barrier of the intrinsic defects in the Ga sublattice, from where we collected the experimental data. By setting these results in the context of the theoretical data available in the literature, we argued that this energy may be attributed to the migration activation of the Ga self-interstitials in α-Ga2O3.