Hydrogen Donors in ZnO

2005 ◽  
Vol 864 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.D. McCluskey ◽  
S.J. Jokela ◽  
W.M. Hlaing Oo

AbstractZinc oxide (ZnO) has shown great promise as a wide-bandgap semiconductor with a range of optical, electronic, and mechanical applications. The presence of compensating donors, however, is a major roadblock to achieving p-type conductivity. Recent first-principles calculations and experimental studies have shown that hydrogen acts as a shallow donor in ZnO, in contrast to hydrogen's usual role as a passivating impurity. Given the omnipresence of hydrogen during growth and processing, it is important to determine the structure and stability of hydrogen donors in ZnO.To address these issues, we performed vibrational spectroscopy on bulk, single-crystal ZnO samples annealed in hydrogen (H2) or deuterium (D2) gas. Using infrared (IR) spectroscopy, we observed O-H and O-D stretch modes at 3326.3 cm-1 and 2470.3 cm-1 respectively, at a sample temperature of 10 K. These frequencies indicate that hydrogen forms a bond with a host oxygen atom, consistent with either an antibonding or bond-centered model. In the antibonding configuration, hydrogen attaches to a host oxygen and points away from the Zn-O bond. In the bond-centered configuration, hydrogen sits between the Zn and O. To discriminate between these two models, we measured the shift of the stretch-mode frequency as a function of hydrostatic pressure. By comparing with first-principles calculations, we conclude that the antibonding model is the correct one.Surprisingly, we found that the O-H complex is unstable at room temperature. After a few weeks, the peak intensity decreases substantially. It is possible that the hydrogen forms H2 molecules, which have essentially no IR signature. Electrical measurements show a corresponding decrease in electron concentration, which is consistent with the formation of neutral H2 molecules. The correlation between the electrical and spectroscopic measurements, however, is not perfect. We therefore speculate that there may be a second “hidden” hydrogen donor. One candidate for such a donor is a hydrogen-decorated oxygen vacancy.

2004 ◽  
Vol 813 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.D. Mccluskey ◽  
S.J. Jokela

ABSTRACTZinc oxide (ZnO) has shown great promise as a wide band gap semiconductor with optical, electronic, and mechanical applications. Recent first-principles calculations and experimental studies have shown that hydrogen acts as a shallow donor in ZnO, in contrast to hydrogen's usual role as a passivating impurity. The structures of such hydrogen complexes, however, have not been determined. To address this question, we performed vibrational spectroscopy on bulk, single-crystal ZnO samples annealed in hydrogen (H2) or deuterium (D2) gas. Using infrared (IR) spectroscopy, we have observed O-H and O-D stretch modes at 3326.3 cm−1 and 2470.3 cm−1 respectively, at a sample temperature of 14 K. These frequencies are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions for hydrogen and deuterium in an antibonding configuration, although the bond-centered configuration cannot be ruled out. The IR-active hydrogen complexes are unstable, however, with a dissocation barrier on the order of 1 eV.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sahib Hasan ◽  
Khagendra Baral ◽  
Neng Li ◽  
Wai-Yim Ching

AbstractChalcogenide semiconductors and glasses have many applications in the civil and military fields, especially in relation to their electronic, optical and mechanical properties for energy conversion and in enviormental materials. However, they are much less systemically studied and their fundamental physical properties for a large class chalcogenide semiconductors are rather scattered and incomplete. Here, we present a detailed study using well defined first-principles calculations on the electronic structure, interatomic bonding, optical, and mechanical properties for 99 bulk chalcogenides including thirteen of these crytals which have never been calculated. Due to their unique composition and structures, these 99 bulk chalcogenides are divided into two main groups. The first group contains 54 quaternary crystals with the structure composition (A2BCQ4) (A = Ag, Cu; B = Zn, Cd, Hg, Mg, Sr, Ba; C = Si, Ge, Sn; Q = S, Se, Te), while the second group contains scattered ternary and quaternary chalcogenide crystals with a more diverse composition (AxByCzQn) (A = Ag, Cu, Ba, Cs, Li, Tl, K, Lu, Sr; B = Zn, Cd, Hg, Al, Ga, In, P, As, La, Lu, Pb, Cu, Ag; C = Si, Ge, Sn, As, Sb, Bi, Zr, Hf, Ga, In; Q = S, Se, Te; $$\hbox {x} = 1$$ x = 1 , 2, 3; $$\hbox {y} = 0$$ y = 0 , 1, 2, 5; $$\hbox {z} = 0$$ z = 0 , 1, 2 and $$\hbox {n} = 3$$ n = 3 , 4, 5, 6, 9). Moreover, the total bond order density (TBOD) is used as a single quantum mechanical metric to characterize the internal cohesion of these crystals enabling us to correlate them with the calculated properties, especially their mechanical properties. This work provides a very large database for bulk chalcogenides crucial for the future theoretical and experimental studies, opening opportunities for study the properties and potential application of a wide variety of chalcogenides.


1998 ◽  
Vol 537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando A. Reboredo ◽  
Sokrates T. Pantelides

AbstractIt is well known that hydrogen plays a key role in p-type doping of GaN. It is believed that H passivates substitutional Mg during growth by forming a Mgs-N-Hi complex; in subsequent annealing, H is removed, resulting in p-type doping. Several open questions have remained, however, such as experimental evidence for other complexes involving Mg and H and difficulties in accounting for the relatively high-temperature anneal needed to remove H. We present first principles calculations in terms of which we show that the doping process is in fact significantly more complex. In particular, interstitial Mg plays a major role in limiting p-type doping. Overall, several substitutional/interstitial complexes form and can bind H, with vibrational frequencies that account for hitherto unidentified observed lines. We predict that these defects, which limit doping efficiency, can be eliminated by annealing in an atmosphere of H and N prior to the final anneal that removes H.


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (20) ◽  
pp. 1650257
Author(s):  
Meng Zhao ◽  
Wenjun Wang ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
Junwei Yang ◽  
Weijie Hu ◽  
...  

Various Be:O-codoped AlN crystals have been investigated via first-principles calculations to evaluate the role of the different combinations in effectively and efficiently inducing p-type carriers. It is found that the O atom is favored to bond with two Be atoms. The formed Be2:O complexes decrease the acceptor ionization energy to 0.11 eV, which is 0.16 eV lower than that of an isolated Be in AlN, implying that the hole concentration could probably be increased by 2–3 orders of magnitude. The electronic structure of Be2:O-codoped AlN shows that the lower ionization energy can be attributed to the interaction between Be and O. The Be–O complexes, despite failing to induce p-type carriers for the mutual compensation of Be and O, introduce new occupied states on the valence-band maximum (VBM) and hence the energy needed for the transition of electrons to the acceptor level is reduced. Thus, the Be2:O codoping method is expected to be an effective and efficient approach to realizing p-type AlN.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 200723
Author(s):  
Hai Duong Pham ◽  
Wu-Pei Su ◽  
Thi Dieu Hien Nguyen ◽  
Ngoc Thanh Thuy Tran ◽  
Ming-Fa Lin

The essential properties of monolayer silicene greatly enriched by boron substitutions are thoroughly explored through first-principles calculations. Delicate analyses are conducted on the highly non-uniform Moire superlattices, atom-dominated band structures, charge density distributions and atom- and orbital-decomposed van Hove singularities. The hybridized 2 p z –3 p z and [2s, 2 p x , 2 p y ]–[3s, 3 p x , 3 p y ] bondings, with orthogonal relations, are obtained from the developed theoretical framework. The red-shifted Fermi level and the modified Dirac cones/ π bands/ σ bands are clearly identified under various concentrations and configurations of boron-guest atoms. Our results demonstrate that the charge transfer leads to the non-uniform chemical environment that creates diverse electronic properties.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (40) ◽  
pp. 19502-19519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Hendrik Pöhls ◽  
Zhe Luo ◽  
Umut Aydemir ◽  
Jon-Paul Sun ◽  
Shiqiang Hao ◽  
...  

van der Waals interactions enhanced the prediction of properties in layered thermoelectrics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siraj Sultan ◽  
Miran Ha ◽  
Dong Yeon Kim ◽  
Jitendra N. Tiwari ◽  
Chang Woo Myung ◽  
...  

AbstractFor efficient water splitting, it is essential to develop inexpensive and super-efficient electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, we report a phosphate-based electrocatalyst [Fe3Co(PO4)4@reduced-graphene-oxide(rGO)] showing outstanding OER performance (much higher than state-of-the-art Ir/C catalysts), the design of which was aided by first-principles calculations. This electrocatalyst displays low overpotential (237 mV at high current density 100 mA cm−2 in 1 M KOH), high turnover frequency (TOF: 0.54 s−1), high Faradaic efficiency (98%), and long-term durability. Its remarkable performance is ascribed to the optimal free energy for OER at Fe sites and efficient mass/charge transfer. When a Fe3Co(PO4)4@rGO anodic electrode is integrated with a Pt/C cathodic electrode, the electrolyzer requires only 1.45 V to achieve 10 mA cm−2 for whole water splitting in 1 M KOH (1.39 V in 6 M KOH), which is much smaller than commercial Ir-C//Pt-C electrocatalysts. This cost-effective powerful oxygen production material with carbon-supporting substrates offers great promise for water splitting.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 1784-1784
Author(s):  
Weiwei Wang ◽  
Yang Zhong ◽  
Dahuai Zheng ◽  
Hongde Liu ◽  
Yongfa Kong ◽  
...  

Correction for ‘p-Type conductivity mechanism and defect structure of nitrogen-doped LiNbO3 from first-principles calculations’ by Weiwei Wang et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2020, 22, 20–27.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiwei Wang ◽  
Yang Zhong ◽  
Dahuai Zheng ◽  
Hongde Liu ◽  
Yongfa Kong ◽  
...  

The charge-state transition level and geometry structure of non-metallic N-doped LiNbO3 are calculated by DFT, which reveal the p-type conductivity mechanism of LiNbO3:N.


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