Deep defects generated in n-conducting ZnO:TM thin films

The ferromagnetism in highly transparent and intrinsically n-type conducting zinc oxide doped with 3d transition metals (TM), is predicted to be defect mediated. We investigate the generation of deep defects in n-conducting 1 μm thick ZnO:TM films (TM=Co, Mn, Ti) with a nominal TM content of 0.02, 0.20 and 2.00 at.% grown by pulsed laser deposition on a-plane sapphire substrates using deep level transient spectroscopy. We find that a defect level is generated, independent of the TM content, located 0.31 and 0.27 eV below the conduction band minimum of ZnO:Mn and ZnO:Ti, respectively. Different defect levels are generated in dependence on the Co content in ZnO:Co. This work shows that an optimization of defect-related ferromagnetism in n-conducting ZnO:TM thin films will only be possible if the preparation sensitive formation of deep defects is controlled in the same time.