Abstract
Damage evolution and phase stability in defective β-Ga2O3 and an irradiation-converted γ-Ga2O3 layer have been studied under ionizing irradiation at 300 K. By exploring athermal nonequilibrium processes in β-Ga2O3, we succeed in identifying a self-healing mechanism that enables defect recovery, characterized by a recovery cross-section of ∼0.17 nm2. Remarkably, this study further demonstrates that the crystallinity of the irradiation-converted γ-Ga2O3 layer improves under ionizing irradiation. More importantly, X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that the highly-strained γ -phase transforms into a highly-crystalline structure without film disintegration, contrasting to that reported for isochronal annealing at 1000 K. The inelastic thermal spike calculations provide insights into the important effects of energy transfer to electrons in reordering the local atomic arrangement of both defective β- Ga2O3 and γ-Ga2O3. This behavior suggests a pathway for low-temperature crystallization, offering a promising strategy for fabricating ultrahigh-speed non-volatile memory devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 116858 |
| Journal | Scripta Materialia |
| Volume | 268 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 1 2025 |
Funding
This work was supported by a grant of the Institute of Atomic Physics, thought FAIR-RO PROGRAMME under Grant No. FAIR-RO/RD/2024_2024_007. The contributions of D. Iancu, A. Hotnog and G. Velisa to this work were also supported by the CORE (Nucleu) PROGRAMME, project PN 23210201. Experiments were carried out at 3 MV Tandetron™ accelerator from “Horia Hulubei” National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN[sbnd]HH) and were supported by the Romanian Government Programme through the National Programme for Infrastructure of National Interest (IOSIN). The contribution of W.J. Weber was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-2104228. E. Zarkadoula (theory and simulation works) was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Y. Zhang was supported by the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program, Government of Canada. V. Leca (XRD analysis) acknowledges the partial support by the Institute of Atomic Physics through ELI-RO ELITE project, contract no. ELI-RO/RDI/2024/026, and by the Romanian Government through the National Programme “Installations and Strategic Objectives of National Interest” and through “Nucleu” project no. PN23 21 01 05. This work was supported by a grant of the Institute of Atomic Physics , thought FAIR-RO PROGRAMME under Grant No. FAIR-RO/RD/2024_2024_007 . The contributions of D. Iancu, A. Hotnog and G. Velisa to this work were also supported by the CORE (Nucleu) PROGRAMME , project PN 23210201 . Experiments were carried out at 3 MV Tandetron™ accelerator from “Horia Hulubei” National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN HH) and were supported by the Romanian Government Programme through the National Programme for Infrastructure of National Interest (IOSIN). The contribution of W.J. Weber was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-2104228 . E. Zarkadoula (theory and simulation works) was supported by the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences , (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Y. Zhang was supported by the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program , Government of Canada. V. Leca (XRD analysis) acknowledges the partial support by the Institute of Atomic Physics through ELI-RO ELITE project, contract no. ELI-RO/RDI/2024/026 , and by the Romanian Government through the National Programme “Installations and Strategic Objectives of National Interest” and through “ Nucleu ” project no. PN23 21 01 05 . Notice: This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05–00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( https://www.energy.gov/doe-public-access-plan ).
Keywords
- Highly ionizing irradiation
- Polymorphism
- Self-healing
- i-TS calculation