An Insight into the Influence of Donor Compensating Defects in Doped ZnO Thin Films

Abstract

Herein, we report a study on the role of acceptor-like VZn (zinc vacancy) donor compensating defects in ZnO by studying In and Sn doped RF magnetron sputtered ZnO thin films prepared under exactly similar growth and post-growth annealing conditions. Sn dopants in ZnO films have been activated largely as evidenced by a more than two orders of magnitude increase in the carrier concentration as compared to the as-grown films while In dopants are activated by only 7 times after a post-growth annealing in excess Zn. Interestingly, an enhanced mobility due to annealing further strengthen the feasible compensation between the dopants and the acceptor-like defects.

Ti‐Doped ZnO Thin Films‐Based Transparent Photovoltaic for High‐Performance Broadband and Wide‐Field‐of‐View Photocommunication Window

“…[23][24][25] Trivalent dopants (i.e., Al 3þ , In 3þ , Ga 3þ ) in ZnO have been extensively studied to improve the electrical properties. [26][27][28] However, introducing a higher valent dopant in ZnO increases the probability of forming donor-acceptor complexes in the host semiconducting material due to the strong coulombic interaction between the donor dopant and acceptor metal vacancy (V Zn , Zn vacancy) defects. [29][30][31][32][33] Meanwhile, it is interesting to explore methods for utilizing the intermediate energy states more effectively.…”