Electrical Properties of Erbium-Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films

Zinc oxide has been extensively studied as a n-type semiconductor for more than half a century. Doping with rare-earth elements has recieved much attention recently due to the enhanced optical and electrical properties. We fabricated Erbium-doped zinc oxide thin films on Si/SiO­₂ on boron-doped p-type silicon substrate by pulsed laser deposition across a range of temperatures from 300℃-700℃. Reduction annealing in a 95%/5% Ar/H atmosphere for different durations were done to reduce resistivity. In this talk I will discuss the effects of reduction annealing with respect to resistivity and band gap through UV-Visible Spectroscopy. The reduction in resistivity along with the band gap remaining fairly similar could be very useful in making efficient semiconductors.