Formation of VZn-NO acceptors with the assistance of tellurium in nitrogen-doped ZnO films

We report the formation of VZn-NO complex shallow acceptors in ZnO films. Through tellurium and nitrogen co-doping under O-rich growth condition, a TeZn-NO complex can be stably formed. A proper O-rich post-annealing process can make tellurium out of the films, and finally results in the formation of VZn-NO complex. This process has been evidenced by a set of characterization methods. Utilizing this approach, hole majority has been realized for a large windows of nitrogen concentration. Therefore, this study may help to advance the investigation on the p-type bottleneck of ZnO material.