Influence of Antimony Species on Electrical Properties of Sb-Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films Prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition

Abstract

This study systematically investigates the influence of antimony (Sb) species on the electrical properties of Sb-doped zinc oxide (SZO) thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition in an oxygen-rich environment. The Sb species-related defects were controlled through a qualitative change in energy per atom by increasing the Sb content in the Sb2O3:ZnO-ablating target. By increasing the content of Sb2O3 (wt.%) in the target, Sb3+ became the dominant Sb ablation species in the plasma plume. Consequently, n-type conductivity was converted to p-type conductivity in the SZO thin films prepared using the ablating target containing 2 wt.% Sb2O3. The substituted Sb species in the Zn site (SbZn3+ and SbZn+) were responsible for forming n-type conductivity at low-level Sb doping. On the other hand, the Sb–Zn complex defects (SbZn–2VZn) contributed to the formation of p-type conductivity at high-level doping. The increase in Sb2O3 content in the ablating target, leading to a qualitative change in energy per Sb ion, offers a new pathway to achieve high-performing optoelectronics using ZnO-based p–n junctions.

Long Electrical Stability on Dual Acceptor P-Type ZnO:Ag,N Thin Films

“…Therefore, this subject is of great interest to the scientific community of materials science since for developing ZnO based optoelectronic devices the principal difficulty lies and has been the manufacture of p-type thin films with good crystalline quality and acceptable electrical stability. The lack of stability is mainly due to the low solubility of the acceptor dopants, the depth of the acceptor level, and the compensation effect between the acceptor and native ZnO donor dopants [1,5,11,12]. Within all the experimental methodologies addressed for the manufacture of p-type ZnO, the double doping method, in which the dopant can be either a double acceptor (acceptor-acceptor) or acceptordonor, has proved to be the best channel to overcome these difficulties.…”

Long Electrical Stability on Dual Acceptor p-Type ZnO:Ag,N Thin Films

“…Therefore, this subject is of great interest to the scientific community of materials science since the principal difficulty in developing ZnO-based optoelectronic devices lies in the manufacture of p-type thin films with good crystalline quality and acceptable electrical stability. The lack of stability is mainly due to the low solubility of the acceptor dopants, the depth of the acceptor level, and the compensation effect between the acceptor and native ZnO donor dopants [ 1 , 5 , 11 , 12 ]. Within all the experimental methodologies addressed for the manufacture of p-type ZnO, the double doping method, in which the dopant can be either a double acceptor (acceptor-acceptor) or acceptor-donor, has proved to be the best channel to overcome these difficulties.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of a Zirconium (Zr) Thin Film on Si(100) via Pulsed Laser Deposition

“…Among the different deposition methods, the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique is considered a highly versatile technique for a growing number of thin film applications [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. PLD uses high-energy laser pulses to vaporize the surface of a solid target inside a vacuum chamber and condenses the vapor on a substrate to form a film.…”