Electric conductivity of boron nitride thin films enhanced by in situ doping of zinc

Abstract

The authors demonstrate that the electric conductivities of cubic and hexagonal boron nitride (c-BN and h-BN) thin films increased markedly by the in situ doping of zinc. The doped films were electrically semiconducting, and conductivities at room temperature increased from 10−8to10−2Ω−1cm−1 with increasing zinc concentration from 400to20000ppm. Activation energies for electric conduction (Ec) of c-BN decreased from 0.3to0.1eV with increasing zinc concentration, suggesting feasible shallow-level doping. On the other hand, h-BN thin films showed approximately 0.1eV higher Ec than those of c-BN’s, due to the formation of defective B–B bonds.

Point defects in hexagonal BN, BC3 and BCxN compounds studied by x-ray absorption near-edge structure

“…Recently, some work have investigated the effect of point defects on the high-temperature conductivity and dielectric loss of h-BN. [9][10][11][12] For bulk h-BN, the increase in the conductivity and subsequent dielectric loss with temperature was linked to thermal excitation of B vacancies and oxygen ionic substitutional and midplane defects. 9,12 Besides, a larger amount of defects was related to a higher conductivity in turbostratic BN thin films, 10 and to a larger activation energy in Zn-doped h-BN compared to c-BN thin films.…”

“…Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a thermally and chemically highly stable wide-band-gap ($4-7 eV) 1 material, whose optical 1-8 and thermoelectrical [9][10][11][12] properties strongly depend upon the occurrence and nature of point defects within its sp 2 -bonded honeycomb structure. Many of the technological uses of h-BN are therefore subject to the identification and quantification of the type and concentration of such defects, which ultimately determine the electronic structure of the material.…”

Functionalization of BN honeycomb structure by adsorption and substitution of foreign atoms

“…2D BN, and their nanoribbons can be easily functionalized by many different ways for different purposes such as doping [15][16][17] , exchange of atoms and vacancies.…”

Electronic structure and impurity states of S-doped cBN: A first-principle study

“…Electrical properties of Be-implanted polycrystalline cBN films were also studied by He et al [14]. Yoshida and Nose et al, reported semiconducting properties of Mg-and Zn-doped cBN thin films [15][16][17]. Recently, electrical transport properties of Si-doped cBN thin films were reported by Ying et al [18].…”