Synthesis and properties of p-type nitrogen-doped ZnO thin films by pulsed laser ablation of a Zn-rich Zn₃N₂ target

Abstract

Epitaxial ZnO thin films doped uniformly with nitrogen at 10 20 atoms/cm 3 were fabricated by pulsed laser ablation of a Zn-rich Zn 3 N 2 target. The films grown at 300°C and annealed at 600°C in O 2 showed p-type conductivity. Two acceptor levels at 105 and 224 meV were determined by temperature-dependent Hall and photoluminescence measurements of the p-type samples. Transmission electron microscopy studies revealed that the p-type ZnO films consist of 10-20 nm columnar grains with a high density of defects and grain boundaries that may facilitate the annihilation of native donors and the activation of acceptors during postdeposition annealing.

Epitaxial Zn3N2 thin films by molecular beam epitaxy: Structural, electrical, and optical properties

“…In this context, several attempts were made to achieve p-ZnO by (partial) oxidation of Zn 3 N 2 [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] or by fabricating ZnO:N from Zn 3 N 2 targets, as demonstrated by pulsed laser ablation. 13 This also led to increased research activity on Zn 3 N 2 itself, including first demonstrations of Zn 3 N 2 in the field of thin film transistors (TFTs). [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Although some band-gap studies on Zn 3 N 2 estimated values of 2.9-3.4 eV, 14,16,23,24 most of the recent studies and theoretical calculations, including photoluminescence measurements, find values in the 0.8-1.5 eV range.…”

Synthesis, characterization and visible light photocatalytic activity of nitrogen-doped zinc oxide nanospheres

“…Nitrogen has been considered as the best candidate for doping because it has a similar ionic radius as oxygen and also has the smallest ionization energy among the group V elements [11]. There are various methods reported for the preparation of N-doped ZnO nanoparticles, including sol gel method [12], microwave synthesis [13], pulsed laser deposition [14,15], etc. The microemulsion method is an efficient way to synthesize nanosized metal oxides.…”

Synthesis and optical properties of N–In codoped ZnO nanobelts

“…Among them, N was commonly regarded as a relatively better choice, which was also confirmed theoretically by Park et al [2]. Recently, many researchers reported the fabrication of p-type nitrogendoped ZnO [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Unfortunately, the quality of the p-type ZnO:N films still remained an obstacle to the development for ZnO.…”