Rectifying ZnO–Na/ZnO–Al aerogels p-n homojunctions

Abstract

Semiconductor ZnO aerogels were synthesized by a sol-gel process with different concentrations (2.5-7.5 wt.%) of Al (n-type) or Na (p-type) and dried under supercritical CO 2 . The materials were calcined at 500 °C to remove the organic content and to crystallize the ZnO. The microstructure of the ZnO-based aerogels comprises a porous structure with hexagonal and platelet-shaped interconnected particles. The bandgap of the aerogels doped with Al decreased significantly compared to pure, undoped ZnO aerogels, while their specific surface area increased. For the electrical characterization of the ZnO-Na/ZnO-Al junctions, the doped ZnO aerogels were deposited on commercial glass substrates coated with indium tin oxide (ITO) by drop casting method. The I-V curves of the p-n homojuntions revealed a characteristic diode rectifying behavior.

Exploring Na Doping in ZnO Thin Films: Electrical and Optical Insights

“…These films possess electrical resistivity up to 10 −4 Ω.cm [13] and n-type conductivity. However, new advances can be established with the development of p-type ZnO layers, enabling the engineering of electron channels as minority carriers in field effect transistors based on p-ZnO [14] and ZnO homojunctions for high-powered diodes or ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diodes (LED) [15][16][17].…”