Dr Yaonan Hou, Swansea University

The challenge 

Highly sensitive X-ray detection is crucial across a wide range of applications, such as medical radiography, safety screening, non-destructive inspection, and astronomy.  Traditional X-ray detectors suffer from one or more drawbacks in sensitivity, longevity, compactness or limited performance in harsh environment applications. Consequently, considerable attention has recently been directed toward emerging semiconductor materials that can improve these properties.  

The research

Dr Yaonan Hou’s research focuses on wide-bandgap semiconductor materials and photonic devices, including novel light emitters and optical sensors. He has a particular interest in developing next-generation X-ray detectors based on emerging semiconductor materials, where fundamental material properties and charge-carrier transport mechanisms remain incompletely understood.  

This project aims to unlock the potential of beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3), a promising semiconductor for high-performance X-ray detection. High-quality β-Ga2O3 materials will be grown using advanced epitaxial techniques and then processed into devices within a state-of-the-art cleanroom facility. In collaboration with Diamond Light Source, the project will investigate device performance and operating mechanisms under X-ray irradiation, leading to the development of analytical models that will inform the design of future ultra-sensitive X-ray detection technologies. 

The researcher 

Dr Yaonan Hou is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Swansea University. He is interested in semiconductor photonic devices and photonic integrated systems. His research themes focus on energy-efficient semiconductor photonic device design, fabrication, characterisation and integrations.