The intrinsic relationship between the kink-and-tail and box-shaped zinc diffusion profiles in n-GaSb

Different diffusion sources were used to study Zn diffusion in n-GaSb. We found that the Ga atoms from the diffusion sources suppressed the formation of the high-concentration surface diffusion fronts in Zn profiles, thus converting the kink-and-tail-shaped profile to the box-shaped profile. Our analysis demonstrated that both the surface and the tail regions in the kink-and-tail profiles showed high-quality regularities. The analysis also revealed that the formation mechanism of the box profiles is the same as that of the tail region of the kink-and-tail profiles. The similarities of the photoluminescence signals between the main region of the box profiles and the tail region of the kink-and-tail profiles substantiated our findings.