Photoluminescence study and structural characterization of p-type ZnO doped by N and/or As acceptors

ZnO doped with N and/or As layers was fabricated by thermal oxidation of ZnTe films grown by MBE on different substrates. Hall effect measurements demonstrated p-type conductivity with a hole concentration of ~5 × 1019 cm−3 for ZnO:As and ZnO:As:N on GaAs substrates and ~6 × 1017 cm−3 for ZnO:N on ZnTe substrates. The concentration of N and As atoms in ZnO is estimated to be ~1020 cm−3. This suggested that simple substitutional N atoms form acceptor impurities with a smaller efficiency than an As-related complex, probably AsZn–2VZn. In particular, we were able to distinguish between nitrogen and arsenic acceptor-related luminescence. Optical studies showed meaningful differences of the PL features in samples with different acceptors, grown on different substrates.