Potential for neutron and proton transmutation doping of GaN and Ga2O3

Abstract

As the potential applications of GaN and Ga₂O₃ are limited by the inadequacy of conventional doping techniques, specifically when uniform selective area p-type doping is required, the potential for transmutation doping of these materials is analyzed. All transmuted element concentrations are reported as a function of time for several common proton and neutron radiation sources, showing that previously published results considered a small subset of the dopants produced. A 40 MeV proton accelerator is identified as the most effective transmutation doping source considered, with a 2.25 × 10¹⁷ protons per cm² fluence yielding net concentrations of uncompensated p-type dopants of 7.7 × 10¹⁵ and 8.1 × 10¹⁵ cm⁻³ for GaN and Ga₂O₃, respectively. Furthermore, it is shown that high energy proton accelerator spectra are capable of producing dopants required for magnetic and neutron detection applications, although not of the concentrations required for current applications using available irradiation methods.