Compound Semiconductors: Electronics, Optoelectronics & Quantum Seminar

Thursday, March 5, 2026, 12:00PM
Attend in person at the Engineering Sciences Building 1001

Carl Peterson

Graduate Student Researcher, Materials Department (Krishnamoorthy Group)

MOCVD Growth of β-Ga₂O₃ for Vertical Power Devices

As global power consumption continues to rise, solutions for creating highly efficient power electronic devices become critical to reduce the amount of energy wasted during power conversion for large systems such as AI data centers. A contender for creating the next generation of efficient power devices is the semiconducting material beta gallium oxide (β-Ga₂O₃). β-Ga₂O₃ utilizes its ultra-wide bandgap of 4.6–4.9 eV and predicted critical electric field strength of 8 MV/cm to access multi-kV breakdown voltages while keeping resistive losses low. To achieve high breakdown and low On-resistances, epitaxial films with exceptional purity, controllable 10¹⁵ cm^-3 doping, and multiple microns of thickness must be achieved. This talk will cover the recent progress made in tackling the challenges of epitaxial growth of β-Ga₂O₃ using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and highlighting the results achieved from devices fabricated on these MOCVD epitaxial layers. Key results include controllable low doping, record-high material mobilities, and state-of-the art Schottky and heterojunction diodes with kilovolt-class breakdown voltages.

BIO: Carl is a 5th year graduate student in the Materials Department advised by Professor Sriram Krishnamoorthy. Carl’s research explores the material growth of beta gallium oxide via MOCVD and the creation of low resistance high voltage power semiconductor diodes and transistors on these grown gallium oxide layers.
HOST: Dr. Sriram Krishnamoorthy, Professor, Materials Department