An investigation of control mechanisms of the excitonic behavior in reactively sputtered ZnO on (0001) Al2O3

Above-band-edge absorption spectra of reactively sputtered Zn- and O-rich samples exhibit free exciton and neutral acceptor bound exciton (A0X) features. It is shown that the residual acceptors which bind excitons with an energy of 75meV reside about 312meV above the valence band, according to effective mass theory. An intra-band-gap absorption feature peaking at 2.5eV shows correlation with the characteristically narrow A-free exciton peak intensity, suggesting a compensation mechanism of the centers involving oxygen vacancy (VO) related donors. In order to enhance free exciton concentration relative to competing neutral bound exciton density, relevant annealing processes are performed without disturbing the residual shallow acceptor profile which is necessary for at least background p-type conductivity.