Control of electrical transport mechanisms at metal-zinc oxide interfaces by subsurface defect engineering with remote plasma treatment.

摘要

ZnO has received renewed attention in recent years due its exciting properties as a wide band gap semiconductor. ZnO has several advantages over GaN including the availability of substrates, a room temperature excitonic emission, and an environmentally benign chemistry. ZnO applications include efficient blue light emitters, surface acoustic wave devices, transparent conductors, high power transistors, and solid state white lighting. Despite this versatility, several hurdles remain before device realization. Firstly, ZnO is almost always p-type. Although high quality n-type ZnO is abundant, there is no stable and reliable p-type doping scheme. Secondly, research into high quality Ohmic and Schottky contacts has been limited. Although there is an abundance of literature, there has yet to be an attempt to understand the physical and chemical mechanisms at metal- ZnO interfaces. In this work, plasma processing techniques are adopted to ZnO. These cold plasmas allow for room temperature modification of the subsurface. Implanting hydrogen has identified it as a primary n-type dopant responsible for a large fraction of the n-type conductivity. Oxygen plasma treatment has yielded an Ohmic to Schottky conversion by reducing oxygen defects at the near surface. Deposition of metals on clean and ordered surfaces reveal the importance that defects play at the metal-semiconductor interface. Higher concentrations of defects promote reactions. This increased reaction eutectic forming and oxide forming. Understanding the nature of the metal allows for engineering of high quality blocking contacts. These contacts can provide added thermal stability to devices. Subsurface introduction of hydrogen and nitrogen provide a potential roadmap to p-type doping and high quality Schottky contacts. Overall, control of transport properties and contact integrity is achieved by remote plasma processing.