Alpha particle detector with planar double Schottky contacts directly fabricated on semi-insulating GaN:Fe template*

Abstract

Alpha particle radiation detectors with planar double Schottky contacts (DSC) are directly fabricated on 5-μm-thick epitaxial semi-insulating (SI) GaN:Fe film with resistivity higher than 1 × 108 Ω ⋅cm. Under 10 V bias, the detector exhibits a low dark current of less than 5.0 × 10−11 A at room-temperature, which increases at higher temperatures. Linear behavior in the semi-log reverse current–voltage plot suggests that Poole–Frenkel emission is the dominant carrier leakage mechanism at high bias. Distinct double-peak characteristics are observed in the energy spectrum of alpha particles regardless of bias voltage. The energy resolution of the SI-GaN based detector is determined to be ∼ 8.6% at the deposited energy of 1.209 MeV with a charge collection efficiency of ∼ 81.7%. At a higher temperature of 90 °C, the measured full width at half maximum (FWHM) rises to 235 keV with no shift of energy peak position, which proves that the GaN detector has potential to work stably in high temperature environment. This study provides a possible route to fabricate the low cost GaN-based alpha particle detector with reasonable performance.