We have grown β-Ga2O3 thin films on sapphire substrates via pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique by varying the oxygen pressure inside deposition chamber as well as the Sn-dopant concentration in the films. X-ray diffraction (XRD) reveals that the deposited thin films are single-phase with a preferred orientation with the diffraction peak belonging to ( \(\:\stackrel{-}{2}\) 01) plane family of β-Ga2O3. The good crystalline quality of the samples was achieved at 6% Sn-doping and 50 mTorr oxygen pressure. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed that the root mean square (RMS) surface roughness of the thin films increased from 1.25 nm to 8.91 nm with increasing oxygen pressure from 10 to 6 Torr to 50 mTorr while it decreases from 8.91 nm to 1.52 nm with increasing Sn concentration from 0 to 12% Sn-doping. The O 1s core level X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra shows the presence of Ga-O and O-Sn bonds in Ga2O3. Metal-semiconductor metal (MSM) Photodetector was fabricated on a 6% Sn-doped sample using Ni as Schottky contact to study the photo response of solar-blind photodetectors based on β-Ga2O3. The maximum value of responsivity and PDCR was found to be ~ 3.5 µA/W and 68 respectively at 235 nm illumination. The photocurrent and the time response of the photodetector were measured at 235 nm illumination and 5 V applied bias. The photo and dark currents of the photodetector lie within the range 10− 12 -10‒10 A and 10‒14 -10‒12 A, respectively. From the the temporal response measurement of the photodetectors, the rise times τr1 and τr2 of 0.55 s and 4.67 s whereas the decay times τd1 and τd2 of 0.28 s and 5.49 s were obtained.
