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P-Type Characteristic of Nitrogen-Doped ZnO Films

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Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a promising material for emerging electronic and photonic applications due to its wide direct band gap and large exciton binding energy. Despite on-going developments, the control of the conductivity type in ZnO films continues to be a challenge. Stable p-type ZnO is required in order to fabricate standalone ZnO-based devices. Nitrogen is considered as a promising candidate to produce a shallow acceptor level in ZnO, since it has similar radii and electrical structure to oxygen. In this experiment, we utilize the low cost sol–gel spin coating technique to fabricate nitrogen-doped ZnO (ZnO:N) films. All films show great optical transmittance above 80% in the visible region. ZnO:N film at 15 at.% doping concentration shows strong UV emission and exhibits low resistivity. A p–n homojunction device based on ZnO:N shows characteristic of a typical rectifying diode, with a turn-on voltage of approximately 1.2 V.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Advanced Devices and Systems, Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, 63100, Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia

    Zi-Neng Ng, Kah-Yoong Chan & Shahruddin Muslimin

  2. Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Dietmar Knipp

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  1. Zi-Neng Ng
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  2. Kah-Yoong Chan
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  3. Shahruddin Muslimin
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  4. Dietmar Knipp
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Correspondence to Kah-Yoong Chan.

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Ng, ZN., Chan, KY., Muslimin, S. et al. P-Type Characteristic of Nitrogen-Doped ZnO Films. J. Electron. Mater. 47, 5607–5613 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6468-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-018-6468-2

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