Sb-related defects in Sb-doped ZnO thin film grown by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

Sb-doped ZnO films were fabricated on c-plane sapphire using the pulsed laser deposition method and characterized by Hall effect measurement, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, and positron annihilation spectroscopy. Systematic studies on the growth conditions with different Sb composition, oxygen pressure, and post-growth annealing were conducted. If the Sb doping concentration is lower than the threshold ∼8 × 1020 cm−3, the as-grown films grown with an appropriate oxygen pressure could be n∼4 × 1020 cm−3. The shallow donor was attributed to the SbZn related defect. Annealing these samples led to the formation of the SbZn-2VZn shallow acceptor which subsequently compensated for the free carrier. For samples with Sb concentration exceeding the threshold, the yielded as-grown samples were highly resistive. X-ray diffraction results showed that the Sb dopant occupied the O site rather than the Zn site as the Sb doping exceeded the threshold, whereas the SbO related deep acceptor was responsible for the high resistivity of the samples.