The Effect of a Nucleation Layer on Morphology and Grain Size in MOCVD-Grown β-Ga 2 O 3 Thin Films on C-Plane Sapphire

β-Ga O thin films grown on widely available c-plane sapphire substrates typically exhibit structural defects due to significant lattice and thermal expansion mismatch, which hinder the use of such films in electronic devices. In this work, we studied the impact of a nucleation layer on MOCVD-grown β-Ga O thin film structure and morphology on a c-plane sapphire substrate. The structure and morphology of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, transmission and scanning electron microscopy, while the composition was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy. It was observed that the use of a nucleation layer significantly increases the grain size in the films in comparison to the films without, particularly in the samples in which H O was used alongside O as the oxygen source for the nucleation layer growth. Our study demonstrates that a nucleation layer can play a critical role in obtaining high quality β-Ga O thin films on c-plane sapphire.