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Title: Simultaneous enhancement of carrier mobility and concentration via tailoring of Al-chemical states in Al-ZnO thin films

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4922732· OSTI ID:22483064
; ;  [1];  [1]
  1. Center for Advance Plasma Surface Technology (CAPST), NU-SKKU Joint Institute for Plasma-Nano Materials (IPNM), School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon-440746 (Korea, Republic of)

Simultaneously achieving higher carriers concentration and mobility is a technical challenge against up-scaling the transparent-conductive performances of transparent-conductive oxides. Utilizing one order higher dense (∼1 × 10{sup 11} cm{sup −3}) plasmas (in comparison to the conventional direct current plasmas), highly c-axis oriented Al-doped ZnO films have been prepared with precise control over relative composition and chemical states of constituting elements. Tailoring of intrinsic (O vacancies) and extrinsic (ionic Al and zero-valent Al) dopants provide simultaneous enhancement in mobility and concentration of charge carriers. Room-temperature resistivity as low as 4.89 × 10{sup −4} Ω cm along the carrier concentration 5.6 × 10{sup 20} cm{sup −3} is obtained in 200 nm thick transparent films. Here, the control of atomic Al reduces the charge trapping at grain boundaries and subdues the effects of grain boundary scattering. A mechanism based on the correlation between electron-hole interaction and carrier mobility is proposed for degenerately doped wide band-gap semiconductors.

OSTI ID:
22483064
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 24; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English