Effect of phosphorus irradiation on the structural, electrical, and optical characteristics of ZnO thin films

► Phosphorus-irradiation performed on ZnO films to try to achieve p-type doping. ► Dominant donor-bound exciton peak for the samples, depict n-type conductivity. ► Increase of free-electron-to-acceptor and donor-to acceptor peaks for the samples. ► Annealing the irradiated samples resulted in reduced defect-related luminescence. ► Acceptor activation energy of 121 meV is measured.