1.37 kV/12 A NiO/-Ga2O3 Heterojunction Diode with Nanosecond Reverse Recovery and Rugged Surge-Current Capability

Ga2O3 power diodes with high voltage/current ratings, superior dynamic performance, robust reliability, and potentially easy-to-implement are a vital milestone on the Ga2O3 power electronics roadmap. In this letter, a better tradeoff between fast reverse-recovery and rugged surge-current capability has been demonstrated in NiO/Ga2O3 p-n heterojunction diodes (HJDs). With the double-layered p-NiO design, the HJD exhibits superior electrostatic performances, including a high breakdown voltage of 1.37 kV, a forward current of 12.0 A with a low on-state resistance of 0.26 Ω, yielding a static Baliga's figure of merit (FOM) of 0.72 GW/cm2. Meanwhile, the fast switching performance has been observed with a short reverse recovery time in nanosecond timescale (11 ns) under extreme switching conditions of d i /d t up to 500 A/μs. In particular, for a 9-mm2 HJD, a large surge current of 45 A has also been obtained in a 10-ms surge transient, thanks to the conductivity modulation effect. These results are comparable with those of the advanced commercial SiC SBDs and have significantly outperformed the past reported Ga2O3 HJDs, fulfilling the enormous potential of Ga2O3 in power applications.