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Compensation mechanism in N-doped ZnO nanowires
Jingyun Gao1, Xinzheng Zhang, Yanghui Sun
1State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, and Electron Microscopy Laboratory, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
N-doped ZnO nanowires are synthesized at a relatively low growth temperature of 500 degrees C by directly heating zinc powder using NH(3) as the dopant. The incorporation of N into the ZnO nanowires is experimentally confirmed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectra and photoluminescence measurements. By combining post annealing experiments after growth with first-principles calculations, the detailed migration mechanism of N and compensation mechanism in N-doped ZnO nanowires are systematically studied. The larger aspect ratio of nanowires favors the formation of oxygen vacancy and out-diffusion of substitutional N (N(O)), making N(O) in ZnO nanowires always compensated by hydrogen interstitials (H(I)). Our results can help to explain the challenge in getting p-type ZnO and shed new light on the possible realization of p-type doping of ZnO in the future.
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