A first-principles study of hydrostatic strain engineering on the electronic properties of β-Ga2O3

β-Ga2O3 has some prominent advantages over other wide band gap semiconductors for application in electronics and optoelectronics. Through density functional theory, the effects of hydrostatic strain on the electronic properties of β-Ga2O3 are investigated. It is found that the band gap of β-Ga2O3 increases and subsequently decreases almost linearly with the hydrostatic strain from −8% to 7%, thus, resulting in the band gap within 3.45–6.28eV. As the strain exceeds −8% or 7%, the phase transition emerges, and its electronic properties exhibit abnormal variation trends as compared to primitive β-Ga2O3. In addition, properties, such as electron effective mass, elastic constants, relaxation time and mobility, show remarkable anisotropy. For the β-Ga2O3 phase with strains, electron mobility along a, b and c directions can be modulated about 2–3 times. The significant range of electronic parameters indicates that strain engineering may be an important approach to meet the different requirements of future electronics.