Post-annealing influence on electrical properties and photoluminescence of B-N codoping ZnO thin films

Abstract B–N codoped ZnO (ZnO:(B,N)) films were grown on quartz substrate by radio-frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering. The influence of post-annealing ambient on electrical and optical properties of ZnO:(B,N) films were investigated using Hall and Photoluminescence (PL) measurement, respectively. Electrical properties studies indicate that both post-annealing ZnO:(B,N) showed p- type conduction. However, compared with ZnO:(B,N) annealed in oxygen, the ZnO:(B,N) annealed in vacuum have low resistivity and high concentration. The PL spectra indicate that two new emission bands located at 3.303 and 3.208 eV originate from the recombination of A 0 X and FA related to N acceptor for the annealed p -ZnO:(B,N) in vacuum, but of A 0 X, FA related to Zn vacancy for the annealed p -ZnO:(B,N) in oxygen. The mechanism of influence of post-annealing on the electrical and optical properties of the ZnO:(B,N) film is discussed in this work.