Temperature and flow modulation doping of manganese in ZnS electroluminescent films by low pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

A temperature and flow modulation (TFM) technique has been developed to modulate the manganese doping profile in ZnS phosphor material grown by lowpressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition for alternating-current thin film electroluminescent devices (TFELDs). In the TFM technique, modulation of both the substrate temperature as well as the flows of metalorganic sources, diethylzinc and tricarbonyl-(methylcyclopentadienyl)-manganese (TCPMn), was used to grow a structure consisting of alternating layers of undoped ZnS at 400°C and Mn-doped ZnS where Mn being incorporated into the undoped ZnS at 550°C. X-ray results indicated that MnS_x phases were present within the ZnS host crystal matrix for the modulation doped samples, while a Mn_xZn_1-xS solid solution was present in the uniformly doped samples. The luminescence efficiency of the TFELDs could be modified by growing the phosphor with dopant (luminescent center) modulation. The TFELDs with a single modulated doping phosphor layer showed lower threshold voltages in the range 70 to 80 V with light emission in the 580 to 587 nm wavelength range. With a twofold increase in the total thickness of the undoped ZnS layer, the brightness and the luminescence efficiency, measured at the threshold voltage plus 40 V, increased by a factor of 20 and 10, respectively. The electroluminescent (EL) characteristics of the phosphors with multiple dopant layers showed higher luminescence efficiency. By using the TFM growth technique, one can engineer the luminescent center distribution in the phosphor layer to improve the EL characteristics.