Single crystal gallium oxide (Ga₂O₃) has been an emerging material for power semiconductor applications. However, the defect distribution of Ga₂O₃ substrates needs to be carefully characterized to improve crystal quality during crystal growth. We analyzed the type and the distribution of defects on commercial (-201) Ga₂O₃ substrates to get a basic standard prior to growing Ga₂O₃ crystals. Etch pit technique was employed to expose the type of defects on the Ga₂O₃ substrates. Synchrotron white beam X-ray topography was also utilized to observe the defect distribution by a nondestructive manner. We expect that the observation of defect distribution with three-dimensional geometry will also be useful for other crystal planes of Ga₂O₃ single crystals.

The morphology of etch pits in commercial 4H-SiC epi-wafer were investigated by molten-KOH etching. The etching process was optimized in 525~570℃ at 2~10 min and the novel type of etch pits was revealed. This type of etch pits have been considered as TED (threading edge dislocation) II, its origin and nature, however, are not reported yet. In this work, the morphology and evolution of etch pits during epitaxial growth were analyzed and the different behavior between TED and TEDII was discussed.