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 recovery pre-existing damage, 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.
