The effect of nitrogen on the properties of zinc nitride thin films and their conversion into p-ZnO:N films

Structural and optical properties of zinc nitride films prepared by rf magnetron sputtering

“…However, it is still difficult to obtain reproducible and reliable p-type ZnO due to its intrinsic defects [10]. Recently, zinc nitride is studied as a promising material [11], and it can be transformed into p-type ZnO [12][13].…”

Synthesis, growth mechanism and optical characterization of zinc nitride hollow structures

“…The calculation results obtained by density functional theory [31] and many other experimental observation suggest that pure zinc nitride is of semiconductor character and conduction is n-type. For n-type semiconductors, optical band gap E g have been shown to be related with carrier concentration (n e ) [48,49] and through carrier concentration, E g also depends on many other parameters like resistivity (r), mobility (m), reaction/sputtering gas concentration [24], annealing process [26], reaction temperature [44], impurities, oxidation conditions, film or nanostructure thickness etc. According to density functional theory [31], optical transition is strongly affected by the native or intrinsic defects and accidental defects introduced in the product like N vacancy, Zn vacancy, selfinterstitial N or Zn defects.…”

“…Zn 3 N 2 belongs to group II-V compounds and is n-type semiconductor. The band gap of zinc nitride is a controversial issue which needs to be resolved if it has to be exploited in various optoelectronic applications [26]. Different researchers have reported different values of its band gap ranging from 0.9 [27] to 3.4 eV [25].…”

“…Zn 3 N 2 is black in color and has cubic anti-scandium oxide (Sc 2 O 3 ) structure with lattice constant a ¼0.978 nm [31]. Most of the work so far done on this material deals with thin films, powder [24][25][26][27][28][29] and only few reports have been published on nanostructures of Zn 3 N 2 like nanowires [32,33] and empty balls [34]. Zn 3 N 2 had been prepared by using different synthetic routes like thermal decomposition of zinc amide (Zn(NH 2 ) 2 ) or ammoniation of zinc powder [29], by nitridation of zinc powder with NH 3 at 6001 C [32][33][34], by reactive rf magnetron sputtering [24], by metal-organic CVD using Zn[N(SiMe 3 ) 2 ] 2 as precursor [35], by direct reaction between NH 3 and zinc metal film at 4101 C [30] and by molten salt electrochemical process [36].…”

ZnO thin films formed from ZnN target by RF sputtering: From materials to devices

“…Zinc nitride (ZnN) is a relatively new material studied for the forming of p-type ZnO: N thin films [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] through the oxidation process. ZnN physical properties are not well studied and its optical band gap, depending on the method of deposition, has been reported to be between 1 and 3 eV [8][9][10].…”