APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 89, 053501 2006

Electrical characterization of ZnO-based homojunctions

J. G. Lu,a Z. Z. Ye,b G. D. Yuan, Y. J. Zeng, F. Zhuge, L. P. Zhu, and B. H. Zhao
State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027,
Peoples Republic of China

S. B. Zhang
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401

Received 10 December 2005; accepted 13 June 2006; published online 31 July 2006
Electrical characteristics have been studied for ZnO p-n and p-i-n homojunctions, with optimization
of device structures for improved performance. Capacitance-voltage measurements confirm the
formation of abrupt junctions. The current-voltage characteristics exhibit their inherent electrical
rectification behavior. The p-ZnO : N , Al / n-ZnO : Al homojunctions fabricated on sapphire
substrates combining with the intrinsic ZnO buffer layer have acceptable p-n diode characteristics,
with the forward turn-on voltage of 1.4 V and the reverse breakdown voltage of 5.3 V. By
introduction of an intrinsic Zn,CdO layer, the resultant p-ZnO : N , Al / i-Zn, CdO / n-ZnO : Al
homojunction exhibits a high reverse breakdown voltage of 18 V. 2006 American Institute of
Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2245221
Recent success in p-type doping in ZnO has opened a
door for its practical applications to short-wavelength optoelectronic devices, such as light emitting diodes and lasers,
which can be an alternative to those based on GaN.1 As
compared with GaN, ZnO has a larger exciton binding energy 60 meV, cf. 25 meV for GaN, which can ensure a
highly efficient emission at room temperature.2 Following
the growth of p-type ZnO films, considerable efforts have
been made to fabricate ZnO-based homostructural p-n junction diodes, with positive results obtained in recent
literatures.312 Guo et al.3 fabricated a ZnO homostructural
diode with the p-ZnO : N / n-ZnO junction grown on a ZnO
wafer. Aoki et al.6 produced a ZnO homojunction diode by
directly forming a P-doped p-type ZnO layer on an intrinsic
n-type ZnO wafer. Ryu et al.8 adopted As-doped p-type ZnO
to fabricate the p-ZnO : As/ n-ZnO homojunction on a SiC
substrate. Xiong et al.9 reported the properties of p-n homojunctions prepared by oxygen control in the sputtering
plasma. Further light on ZnO-based diodes was added by
combining a N-III III= Al, Ga, and In codoped p-type ZnO
layer with a n-type ZnO layer on a quartz, sapphire, or silicon substrate.10,11 For example, we fabricated ZnO p-n homojunctions composed of a NAl codoped p-type ZnO layer
and an Al-doped n-type ZnO layer.11 Recently, Tsukazaki et
al.12 claimed the room-temperature electroluminescence
from a ZnO p-i-n homojunction grown on a ScAlMgO4 substrate. All of these progresses have focused attention on the
development of light emitting diodes in the ZnO system.
For the improved device performance, an acceptable homostructural junction is demanded. The characteristics of homojunctions are mainly controlled by the layer material, contact electrode, and device structure. At this early stage of
ZnO light emitting diode development, the p-type layer is
certainly crucial considering its instability. But it should be
noted that the other facets also play important roles in fabricating ZnO homojunctions. However, there have been few
reports on this related field, except the study on contact electrodes for forming Ohmic behavior.13 In this letter, we dema

Electronic mail: lujianguo@zju.edu.cn

Electronic mail: yezz@cmsce.zju.edu.cn

onstrate the electrical characterization of ZnO-based homojunctions, describing the design and optimization of device
structures with improved performance.
Four kinds of ZnO thin films were involved in this work.
They are undoped ZnO, Cd-doped ZnO Zn,CdO,
Al-doped ZnO ZnO:Al, and NAl codoped ZnO
ZnO:N,Al. In our previous reports, we have provided a
NAl codoping method as an effective approach to achieve
p-type ZnO, and the resultant p-type conductivity was demonstrated to be stable and controllable.11,14,15 Thus, we use
ZnO:N,Al films as the p-type layer. All the four kinds of
ZnO films were prepared by using a magnetron sputtering
system. Details of the growth process could be found
elsewhere.14,16 The electrical properties of p-ZnO : N , Al,
n-ZnO : Al, and i-Zn, CdO films, with their respective
growth processes exactly the same as that adopted in fabricating homojunctions except that the growth time was different, are listed in Table I, measured by the van der Pauw
configuration on sapphire substrates, with the film thickness
about 350 nm.
By using these ZnO films, we fabricated two
series of two-layer-structured ZnO p-n homojunctions,
p-ZnO : N , Al / n-ZnO : Al and n-ZnO : Al/ p-ZnO : N , Al,
on sapphire substrates, as shown in Fig. 1. They were made
in a layer-by-layer growth mode. In-Sn alloy contact spots
were deposited on both layers, followed by annealing for
30 s at 400 C in a pure Ar ambient. This rapid thermal
annealing treatment is necessary to decrease contact resistance and to increase adhesive force. The inset in Fig. 1
shows the surface current-voltage I-V characteristics of the
TABLE I. Electrical properties of p-ZnO : N , Al, n-ZnO : Al, and
i-Zn, CdO films derived from Hall-effect measurements at room temperature.

Sample
p-ZnO : N , Al
n-ZnO : Al
i-Zn, CdO

Growth
time
C

Resistivity
cm

Hall
mobility
cm2 / V s

Carrier
concentration
cm3

500
400
350

2.64
0.0085
751

1.62
3.7
0.84

1.45 1018
1.97 1020
9.85 1015

0003-6951/2006/895/053501/3/$23.00
89, 053501-1
2006 American Institute of Physics
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053501-2

Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 053501 2006

Lu et al.

FIG. 1. I-V characteristics of two-layer-structured ZnO p-n homojunctions

p-ZnO : N , Al / n-ZnO : Al and n-ZnO : Al/ p-ZnO : N , Al. The insets
show their schematic diagrams and the I-V dependencies of InSn alloy
contacts on p-ZnO : N , Al and n-ZnO : Al films.

p-ZnO : N , Al and n-ZnO : Al films in contact with the alloys. The Ohmic behaviors are confirmed by the fairly linear
I-V dependencies.
The I-V characteristics of the p-ZnO : N , Al /
n-ZnO : Al homojunction are shown in Fig. 1, which display
an apparently electrical rectifying behavior that is consistent
with the formation of a typical p-n junction at the interface.
The forward turn-on voltage appears at 2 V, and the reverse breakdown voltage is 4 V. A low leakage current is
also observed under reverse bias. For comparison, we fabricated a n-ZnO : Al/ p-ZnO : N , Al homojunction by using
p-type ZnO as the bottom layer and n-type ZnO as the top
layer, whose I-V characteristics are also shown in Fig. 1. It
still exhibits an evident asymmetric feature, but compared
with that of the former homojunction, the degradation in performance can be readily identified, with increased forward
turn-on voltage and decreased reverse breakdown voltage.
Investigations on p-type ZnO films indicated that a long-time
postannealing process in a conventional ambient such as O2
is usually harmful to their p-type conductivity.17 As we
know, the following n-type layer growth process after deposition of p-type layer actually plays an annealing effect to
this p-type film already grown on the substrate. It possibly
answers for this degradation. Accordingly, to improve diode
performance, the n-type ZnO layer should be deposited prior
to the p-type layer in fabricating ZnO homojunctions.
Capacitance-voltage C-V measurements were performed on these junctions. Based on Andersons abrupt junction diffusion model, the unit area capacitance for a homojunction can be expressed as
C=

0rqNAND
2NA + NDV0 V

FIG. 2. Inverse of square of capacitance as a function of applied voltage for

a p-ZnO : N , Al / n-ZnO : Al diode.

centration NA in the p-type layer is found to be

8.72 1017 cm3, which is in agreement with Hall measurements for similar ZnO:N,Al films.
To further improve the diode behavior, we fabricated a
p-ZnO : N , Al / n-ZnO : Al junction by introduction of a
100-nm-thick intrinsic ZnO buffer layer on a sapphire substrate at 350 C. Figure 3 shows the I-V characteristics of
this ZnO p-n homostructural diode. They exhibit an inherent
and acceptable rectification behavior, and the results are reproducible. The forward turn-on voltage occurs at 1.4 V,
and the breakdown voltage is 5.3 V in reverse bias with a
quite low leakage current. A maximum forward-to-reverse
current ratio of 90 occurs at 2.0 V. As can be seen, the
diode behavior improved significantly compared with that
without a buffer layer, demonstrating the importance of ZnO
buffer layer in enhancing the device performance. In this
context it is worthy to campare the I-V characteristics measured by other workers for ZnO p-n homojunctions. The
turn-on voltage commonly appears in the range from
1 to 3 V, such as 0.5 V for p-ZnO : N / n-ZnO,3 1 V for
p-ZnO : P / n-ZnO,6 1.5 V for n-ZnO / p-Zn, MgO : P,7 and
3 V for n-ZnO / p-ZnO : N , In homojunctions.10 These
values are smaller than the band gap energy of ZnO
3.37 eV. The low turn-on voltage remains under consider-

1/2

Here, q is the electronic charge, 0 is the vacuum permittivity, r is the relative permittivity r = 8.75 for ZnO, V0 is the
built-in voltage, and NA and ND are the carrier concentrations
in the p-type and n-type layers, respectively. Figure 2 shows
a plot of 1 / C2 as a function of V for the p-ZnO : N , Al /
n-ZnO : Al diode. It is linear in the 0 3.5 V reverse bias
range, which confirms that the junction is electrically abrupt.
From Fig. 2, the V0 value of 2.1 V can be obtained.
If we assume ND = 1.97 1020 cm3, the average carrier con-

FIG. 3. I-V characteristics of a ZnO p-n homojunction p-ZnO : N , Al /

n-ZnO : Al by introduction of an intrinsic ZnO buffer layer on a sapphire
substrate. The insets are the junction schematic and the I-V plot in semilog
form.
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053501-3

Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 053501 2006

Lu et al.

FIG. 4. I-V characteristics of a ZnO p-i-n homojunction

p-ZnO : N , Al / i-Zn, CdO / n-ZnO : Al by adopting an intrinsic Zn,CdO
film as the active layer. The insets illustrate the schematic of the p-i-n
junction, as well as the band gap energies of the p-ZnO : N , Al,
i-Zn, CdO, and n-ZnO : Al films derived from their respective optical
absorption spectra.

ation, but it seems to be acceptable as qualified by electroluminescence in oxide p-n junctions.3,6,18 These data are remarkably low compared with other wide-gap materials such
as GaN and ZnSe. For this reason, ZnO-based devices are
very favorable for long-time operation without serious
Ohmic heating at the contact.
The inset in Fig. 3 shows the semilog plot of I-V curves.
The measured forward current has two distinct regions. For
low bias V 0.7 V the current increases exponentially with
the applied voltage, while for high bias V 0.7 V the current increases in proportion to the power of voltage. The
diode ideality factor can be determined by using the
usual junction rectification model in the low bias region:
I = I0expqV/kT 1,

where I0 is the saturation current, k is Boltzmanns constant,

and T is the absolute temperature. The ideality factor derived from the equation is 4.3. This value is somewhat high
as compared with that of the ideal p-n junctions = 1 2.
Nevertheless, the ideality factor obtained here is similar to,
but often less than, those observed for ZnO p-n junctions
reported elsewhere, such as 325 for p-ZnO : As/ n-ZnO,8
1020 for n-ZnO / p-Zn, MgO : P,7 and 4.710.6 for
p-ZnO : N / n-ZnO homojunctions.5 The high ideality factor
suggests that there are multiple current transport mechanisms
in the junctions, such as conventional carrier recombination
in the space-charge region, as well as deep-level-assisted
tunneling and/or parasitic rectifying junctions within the device. Further investigations should be done for improved
junction quality.
It is well known that the band gap of ZnO can be tuned
by alloying with Cd, and the resulting Zn, CdO alloys allow luminescence covering a wide range from
2.3 to 3.37 eV theoretically. The p-ZnO / i-Zn, CdO /
n-ZnO homojunction composed of a narrow-band-gap Zn,
CdO film as the active layer can be used for lasers with
potentially high quantum efficiency. Figure 4 illustrates the
p-i-n junction structure combining with an intrinsic ZnO
buffer layer and the I-V characteristics of this diode. It displays a fairly good rectification. The p-ZnO : N , Al /
i-Zn, CdO / n-ZnO : Al homojunction diode, on the one

hand, has a reverse breakdown voltage as high as 18 V,

with a relatively low reverse leakage current, but on the other
hand, the forward turn-on voltage also appears at a high
value of about 4.2 V, which is presumably owing to the additional film and interface resistivities by introduction of an
intrinsic Zn,CdO layer as compared with two-layerstructured homojunctions. The rectifying behavior of p-i-n
junction has also been observed in the p-ZnO : N / i-ZnO /
n-ZnO : Ga homojunction,12 with a forward turn-on voltage
appearing at 7 V and a reverse breakdown voltage 10 V.
By the way, attempts to observe the room-temperature band
edge emission from the p-i-n homojunction provided here
were unsuccessful probably due to the polycrystal nature of
ZnO films grown by a sputtering system. Alternately, we
have observed the electroluminescence in suchlike ZnO homojunction diodes fabricated by pulsed laser deposition with
improved device quality, which will be reported separately.
In summary, we have fabricated ZnO-based p-n and
p-i-n homojunctions on sapphire substrates. The homojunctions are electrically abrupt, exhibiting apparent rectifying
characteristics, and they are reproducible. The device structure was designed and optimized to obtain improved performance. This study is expected to provide further insight on
the emergence of homostructural diodes in the ZnO system.
The challenges to be resolved in the near future will be 1 to
stabilize the p-type behavior in ZnO, 2 to further optimize
the device structure, and 3 to control the surface and interface states in ZnO homojunction diodes.
This work was supported by the Key Project of National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.
50532060.
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