Annealing temperature dependent electrical and optical properties of ZnO and MgZnO films in hydrogen ambient

Un-doped ZnO and MgZnO thin films were deposited on c-plane sapphire substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and subsequently annealed in hydrogen ambient at 200–500 °C with a step of 100 °C. Hall-effect measurements show that annealing temperature has great effect on the electrical property of both ZnO and MgZnO films. The electron concentration of both ZnO and MgZnO films increases with annealing temperature ranging from 200 °C to 400 °C, and then decreases, which is attributed to incorporation of H into ZnO as a shallower donor during the annealing process and change of solid solubility of hydrogen in ZnO and MgZnO films with annealing temperature. The D0X emission is related to the hydrogen in MgZnO film and the donor level of the H is estimated to be 33.5 meV. It is also found that the controversial luminescence band at 3.310 eV can be formed in un-doped ZnO film upon annealing and its intensity increases with increasing annealing temperature, implying that this band may be not related to p-type doping.