High‐quality ZnS thin‐film growth for flat‐panel displays

A comprehensive study is reported of the chemical‐beam epitaxy (CBE) and metalorganic molecular‐beam epitaxy (MOMBE) growth of undoped and Mn‐doped ZnS on (100) silicon and GaAs substrates for applications in advanced electroluminescent displays and optoelectronic device integration. Low‐temperature photoluminescence studies on undoped ZnS at 10K show highly pronounced excitonic and band‐edge emission bands with several orders of associated longitudinal optical phonon replicas. The homogeneously Mn‐doped ZnS layers showed the characteristic orange luminescence which depended on the concentration of Mn. However, Mn delta‐doped ZnS exhibited much brighter luminescence than the ZnS homogeneously doped with a comparable number of Mn ions. The temperature dependence of the Mn luminescence was investigated in detail. Different temperature dependences were observed from the homogeneously and delta‐doped ZnS layers. A single‐parameter configuration model was applied and found to explain the luminescence properties of homogeneously doped ZnS. For delta‐doped ZnS, the configuration coordinate model failed and the antiferromagnetic interaction between the Mn ions must be considered to explain the observed results.