Space charge spectroscopy applied to epitaxial ZnO

One advantageous material property of the wide band-gap II-VI semiconductor ZnO is it's higher radiation hardness compared to the most commonly used semiconductor materials Si and GaAs, respectively. Nevertheless, certain defects are introduced by radiation, implantation or even contact metal deposition. For systematic investigations we used pieces of a single 2 inch ZnO thin film grown by pulsed-laser deposition. To study the influence of the contact metal the thin films were used in their as-grown state. The introduction rate of intrinsic defects is determined for argon-ion implanted thin films. All samples were investigated by depth-resolved cathodoluminescence and space charge spectroscopic methods.