Zinc oxide has developed a case of acne (A perspective on the article, 'Nanostructure Growth-Induced Defect Formation and Band Bending at ZnO Surfaces', by T. A. Merz,D. R. Doutt, T. Bolton, Y. Dong, and L J. Brillson)

摘要

Interest in the semiconducting properties of ZnO has led to more than a century of research on the electrical and optical characteristics of this material [1-4]. In fact, over this time period ZnO has been "rediscovered" at least twice [5,6] as new generations of researchers bring the latest advances in growth and analysis capabilities to the very difficult problem of achieving stable and reliable p-type doping [7,8]. Since p-type doping is essential to the development of many electronic devices which rely on the formation of a p-n junction, such as light-emitting-diodes (LEDs), these challenges led early researchers to turn to investigations of surface effects [9-13] for catalysis and gas sensing applications [14]. More recent results [15-17] show that an n-type conducting surface layer is present in most all ZnO epitaxial layers and bulk crystals, so understanding the surface physics of ZnO in more detail and developing methods to control its properties are necessary to advance ZnO-based devices.