Electroreflectance study of antimony doped ZnO thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract In this research, antimony doped ZnO (SZO) thin films with various doping content have been grown on a c-Al2O3 substrate by pulsed laser deposition. The effect of the applied electric field on the bandgap of SZO thin films was studied by electroreflectance (ER) spectroscopy using a capacitor-type geometry. Hall effect measurements indicate that the p-type conductivity of SZO is realized for the Sb2O3 weight percentage at 2%. The blue shift of the energy bandgap was observed in thin films after increasing the doping concentration. The Burstein-Moss effect is the crucial mechanism for the blue shift of the SZO bandgap. Furthermore, we found the red shift of bandgap in all samples, which was measured under various electric fields by ER spectroscopy. The changes of the optical transition in the band structure should be the origin of the red shift behaviors of the SZO bandgap under the presence of the electric field. Based on our results, we can design and optimize the bandgap of SZO for optoelectronic devices.