High electron mobility of phosphorous-doped homoepitaxial ZnO thin films grown by pulsed-laser deposition

The transport properties of phosphorous-doped ZnO thin films, grown by pulsed-laser deposition on thermally pretreated hydrothermally grown ZnO single-crystal substrates, are reported. The ZnO:P thin films show very good morphological and structural properties as confirmed by atomic force microscopy (AFM), high resolution x-ray diffraction, and Rutherford backscattering (RBS) channeling. Steps of height c/2 are visible in AFM investigations for all samples. For an oxygen partial pressure of 0.1 mbar, two-dimensional growth was found. RBS channeling of a ZnO:P film shows a minimum yield of 0.034 which is comparable to that of an annealed substrate (0.033). Hall effect measurements revealed that all films are n-type for the present growth conditions. Peak mobilities of 800 cm^2/Vs have been observed around 70 K, in line with the high structural quality of the samples. Room-temperature mobility in ZnO:P is up to 170 cm^2/Vs.