Transparent conductivity modulation of ZnO by group-IVA doping

Highlights: ⿢Group-IVA doped ZnO were investigated by first principle calculations. ⿢For group-IVA doped ZnO, Si doped ZnO has higher transmittance in visible region and UV region. ⿢Intraband transition causes the reduction of visible region transmittance. We examined the effect of group-IVA doping on the electronic structure and transmittance of ZnO using first-principle calculations. All these doped ZnO materials are found to perform n-type conductive behavior. Si-doped ZnO and Pb-doped ZnO are found to have larger optical band gap than those of Ge-doped ZnO and Sn-doped ZnO. The transmittance of Si-doped ZnO is found to be high in both UV and visible region. The enhancement of UV region transmittance can be attributed to the enhanced optical band gap, while the reduction of visible region transmittance is due to the intraband optical transition.