The impact of time-varying phosphorus doping on ZnMgO thin films and achievement of dominant acceptor-bound-exciton peak

ZnO is a highly efficient and promising semiconductor material because of its large bandgap (3.37 eV) and exciton binding energy (60 meV). MgO also has a very high bandgap (7.8 eV), and the incorporation of Mg into ZnO can result in an alloy with a bandgap of more than 4 eV . We used plasma immersion ion implantation to dope phosphorus into Zn0.85Mg0.15O for achieving p-type ZnMgO. RF sputtering was used to deposit ZnMgO on a Si substrate. Phosphorus doping was conducted from 10 s to 70 s. Rapid thermal annealing of the samples was performed to remove any implantation defects. A highly dominant acceptor-bound-exciton peak was observed at 3.36 eV by photoluminescence measurements, which continued to dominate from low temperature to room temperature. Donor-bound acceptor and free-electron acceptor peaks were also observed at 3.24 eV and 3.28 eV, respectively.