Production and recovery of defects in phosphorus-implanted ZnO

Chen, Z. Q.; Kawasuso, Atsuo; Xu, Y.; Naramoto, Hiroshi; Yuan, X. L.*; Sekiguchi, Takashi*; Suzuki, Ryoichi*; Odaira, Toshiyuki*

Phosphorus ions were implanted into ZnO crystals with energies of 50-380 keV to a dose of 10-10 cm. Positron annihilation measurements show the introduction of vacancy clusters after implantation. These vacancy clusters evolve to microvoids after annealing at a temperature of 600C, and disappear gradually up to 1100C. Raman scattering measurements show the production of oxygen vacancies (V). They are annealed up to 700C accompanying the agglomeration of vacancy clusters. The light emissions of ZnO are suppressed due to the competing nonradiative recombination centers introduced by implantation. Recovery of the light emission occurs above 600C. The vacancy-type defects detected by positrons might be part of the nonradiative recombination centers. Hall measurement shows n-type conductivity for the P-implanted ZnO layer, which suggests that phosphorus is an amphoteric dopant.