Evaluation of acceptor binding energy of nitrogen- doped zinc oxide thin films grown by dielectric barrier discharge in pulsed laser deposition

In this research, nitrogen (N)-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films have been grown on a sapphire substrate by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in pulsed laser deposition (PLD). DBD has been used as an effective way for massive in-situ generation of N-plasma under conventional PLD process conditions. Low-temperature photoluminescence spectra of N-doped ZnO thin films provided near-band-edge emission after a thermal annealing process. The emission peak was resolved by Gaussian fitting and showed a dominant acceptor-bound excitation peak (A⁰X) that indicated acceptor doping of ZnO with N. The acceptor binding energy of the N acceptor was estimated to be approximately 145 MeV based on the results of temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) measurements.