DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Nitrogen is a deep acceptor in ZnO

Abstract

Zinc oxide is a promising material for blue and UV solid-state lighting devices, among other applications. Nitrogen has been regarded as a potential p-type dopant for ZnO. However, recent calculations indicate that nitrogen is a deep acceptor. This paper presents experimental evidence that nitrogen is, in fact, a deep acceptor and therefore cannot produce p-type ZnO. A broad photoluminescence (PL) emission band near 1.7 eV, with an excitation onset of ~2.2 eV, was observed, in agreement with the deep-acceptor model of the nitrogen defect. Thus the deep-acceptor behavior can be explained by the low energy of the ZnO valence band relative to the vacuum level.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
  2. COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (Pakistan)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1076494
Grant/Contract Number:  
FG02-07ER46386; DMR-1004804
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
AIP Advances
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 1; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 2158-3226
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; II-IV semiconductors; photoluminescence; annealing; doping; vacancies

Citation Formats

Tarun, M. C., Iqbal, M. Zafar, and McCluskey, M. D. Nitrogen is a deep acceptor in ZnO. United States: N. p., 2011. Web. doi:10.1063/1.3582819.
Tarun, M. C., Iqbal, M. Zafar, & McCluskey, M. D. Nitrogen is a deep acceptor in ZnO. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3582819
Tarun, M. C., Iqbal, M. Zafar, and McCluskey, M. D. Thu . "Nitrogen is a deep acceptor in ZnO". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3582819. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1076494.
@article{osti_1076494,
title = {Nitrogen is a deep acceptor in ZnO},
author = {Tarun, M. C. and Iqbal, M. Zafar and McCluskey, M. D.},
abstractNote = {Zinc oxide is a promising material for blue and UV solid-state lighting devices, among other applications. Nitrogen has been regarded as a potential p-type dopant for ZnO. However, recent calculations indicate that nitrogen is a deep acceptor. This paper presents experimental evidence that nitrogen is, in fact, a deep acceptor and therefore cannot produce p-type ZnO. A broad photoluminescence (PL) emission band near 1.7 eV, with an excitation onset of ~2.2 eV, was observed, in agreement with the deep-acceptor model of the nitrogen defect. Thus the deep-acceptor behavior can be explained by the low energy of the ZnO valence band relative to the vacuum level.},
doi = {10.1063/1.3582819},
journal = {AIP Advances},
number = 2,
volume = 1,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2011},
month = {Thu Apr 14 00:00:00 EDT 2011}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 117 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Production of native donors in ZnO by annealing at high temperature in Zn vapor
journal, October 2005

  • Halliburton, L. E.; Giles, N. C.; Garces, N. Y.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 87, Issue 17
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.2117630

Structure and stability of N–H complexes in single-crystal ZnO
journal, June 2010

  • Jokela, S. J.; McCluskey, M. D.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 107, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.3443457

Why nitrogen cannot lead to p-type conductivity in ZnO
journal, December 2009

  • Lyons, J. L.; Janotti, A.; Van de Walle, C. G.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 25
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.3274043

Determination of the ionization energy of nitrogen acceptors in zinc oxide using photoluminescence spectroscopy
journal, April 2004

  • Wang, Lijun; Giles, N. C.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 84, Issue 16
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1711162

p ‐type ZnSe by nitrogen atom beam doping during molecular beam epitaxial growth
journal, November 1990

  • Park, R. M.; Troffer, M. B.; Rouleau, C. M.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 57, Issue 20
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.103919

Production of nitrogen acceptors in ZnO by thermal annealing
journal, February 2002

  • Garces, N. Y.; Giles, N. C.; Halliburton, L. E.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 80, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1450041

Optical Properties of the Nitrogen Acceptor in Epitaxial ZnO
journal, December 2002


Nitrogen and hydrogen in bulk single-crystal ZnO
journal, December 2009


Plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy of ZnO on c  -plane sapphire: Growth and characterization
journal, October 1998

  • Chen, Yefan; Bagnall, D. M.; Koh, Hang-jun
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 84, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.368595

Large-Lattice-Relaxation Model for Persistent Photoconductivity in Compound Semiconductors
journal, September 1977


“Hidden hydrogen” in as-grown ZnO
journal, December 2004

  • Shi, G. Alvin; Saboktakin, Marjan; Stavola, Michael
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 85, Issue 23
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1832736

Donor–acceptor pair transitions in ZnO substrate material
journal, December 2001


Growth of p-type Zinc Oxide Films by Chemical Vapor Deposition
journal, November 1997

  • Minegishi, Kazunori; Koiwai, Yasushi; Kikuchi, Yukinobu
  • Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 36, Issue Part 2, No. 11A
  • DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.36.L1453

Origin of p -type doping difficulty in ZnO: The impurity perspective
journal, August 2002


Pitfalls of Using Pressure to Assign the Luminescence of Large-Lattice-Relaxation Defects
journal, January 1999


Deep energy levels of defects in the wurtzite semiconductors AIN, CdS, CdSe, ZnS, and ZnO
journal, July 1983


Universal alignment of hydrogen levels in semiconductors, insulators and solutions
journal, June 2003


Defects in ZnO
journal, October 2009

  • McCluskey, M. D.; Jokela, S. J.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 106, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.3216464

Heavy p ‐doping of ZnTe by molecular beam epitaxy using a nitrogen plasma source
journal, February 1993

  • Han, J.; Stavrinides, T. S.; Kobayashi, M.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 62, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.108568

Magnetic resonance studies of ZnO
journal, December 2001


Characterization of homoepitaxial p -type ZnO grown by molecular beam epitaxy
journal, September 2002

  • Look, D. C.; Reynolds, D. C.; Litton, C. W.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 81, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1504875

p -type doping with N and Li acceptors of ZnS grown by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy
journal, March 2000

  • Svob, L.; Thiandoume, C.; Lusson, A.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 76, Issue 13
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.126139

Works referencing / citing this record:

Codoping and Interstitial Deactivation in the Control of Amphoteric Li Dopant in ZnO for the Realization of p-Type TCOs
journal, March 2017

  • Catellani, Alessandra; Calzolari, Arrigo
  • Materials, Vol. 10, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.3390/ma10040332

Acceptor-modulated optical enhancements and band-gap narrowing in ZnO thin films
journal, March 2018

  • Hassan, Ali; Jin, Yuhua; Irfan, Muhammad
  • AIP Advances, Vol. 8, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.5020830

Recent progress of the native defects and p-type doping of zinc oxide
journal, April 2017


The nitridation of ZnO nanowires
journal, March 2012

  • Zervos, Matthew; Karipi, Chrystalla; Othonos, Andreas
  • Nanoscale Research Letters, Vol. 7, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1186/1556-276x-7-175

Effects of hole localization on limiting p -type conductivity in oxide and nitride semiconductors
journal, January 2014

  • Lyons, J. L.; Janotti, A.; Van de Walle, C. G.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4838075

Acceptors in ZnO
journal, March 2015

  • McCluskey, Matthew D.; Corolewski, Caleb D.; Lv, Jinpeng
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 117, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4913827

Tutorial: Defects in semiconductors—Combining experiment and theory
journal, May 2016

  • Alkauskas, Audrius; McCluskey, Matthew D.; Van de Walle, Chris G.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 119, Issue 18
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4948245

Critical increase in Na-doping facilitates acceptor band movements that yields ~180 meV shallow hole conduction in ZnO bulk crystals
journal, March 2017

  • Parmar, Narendra S.; Yim, Haena; Choi, Ji-Won
  • Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/srep44196

On the origin of the enhancement of defect related visible emission in annealed ZnO micropods
journal, October 2019

  • Gokarna, Anisha; Aad, Roy; Zhou, Junze
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 126, Issue 14
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.5111184

Hydrogen in oxide semiconductors
journal, May 2012

  • McCluskey, Matthew D.; Tarun, Marianne C.; Teklemichael, Samuel T.
  • Journal of Materials Research, Vol. 27, Issue 17
  • DOI: 10.1557/jmr.2012.137

ZnO 1−x Te x highly mismatched alloys beyond the dilute alloy limit: Synthesis and electronic band structure
journal, April 2019

  • Ting, M.; Yu, K. M.; Jaquez, M.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 125, Issue 15
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.5088852

Electronic structure of defects and doping in ZnO: Oxygen vacancy and nitrogen doping
journal, October 2013

  • Boonchun, Adisak; Lambrecht, Walter R. L.
  • physica status solidi (b), Vol. 250, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1002/pssb.201370567

Progress in ZnO Acceptor Doping: What Is the Best Strategy?
journal, January 2014

  • Reynolds, Judith G.; Reynolds, C. Lewis
  • Advances in Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 2014
  • DOI: 10.1155/2014/457058

Fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo description of nitrogen defects in zinc oxide
journal, February 2017


IMPACT OF N DOPING ON THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ZnO THIN FILMS
journal, January 2018


Evidence of defect band mechanism responsible for band gap evolution in ( ZnO ) 1 x ( GaN ) x alloys
journal, October 2019


Investigation on the p-type formation mechanism of nitrogen ion implanted ZnO thin films induced by rapid thermal annealing
journal, January 2019

  • Huang, Zheng; Ruan, Haibo; Zhang, Hong
  • Optical Materials Express, Vol. 9, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1364/ome.9.003098

Identification of a Nitrogen-related acceptor in ZnO nanowires
journal, January 2019

  • Stehr, Jan E.; Chen, Shula L.; Chen, Weimin M.
  • Nanoscale, Vol. 11, Issue 22
  • DOI: 10.1039/c9nr03100f