Degenerate layer at ZnO/sapphire interface

Zinc oxide (ZnO) films have been prepared on sapphire substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. It is found that the electron concentration of the films decreases, while the mobility increases with increasing the film thickness. Temperature-dependent Hall measurement reveals the existence of a degenerate layer at the ZnO/sapphire interface, which will increase the electron concentration and decrease the mobility in the ZnO film. By using a two-layer conduction model, the electron concentration and mobility of the film excluding the influence of the degenerate layer have been determined. A fitting to the corrected electron concentration of the ZnO film yields an activation energy of about 31 meV for the residual donors.