Tuning p/np/n conductivity in wurtzite transition metal monoxide: Role of native defects in CoO and MnO

•The conductivity of rare wurtzite oxide are studied for wider applications.•CoO is found to be p-type semiconductors intrinsically, hard for n-type.•MnO is tunable for both p and n types as the oxygen chemical potential changes.

First-principles calculations with GGA+U approach are carried out in studying the properties of intrinsic defects of the wurtzite MnO, and CoO. For intrinsic MnO, it shows tunable p-type and n-type conductivity under O rich and O poor conditions, respectively. For intrinsic CoO, it is easy to be designed as p-type semiconductors under O rich condition, but hard for n  -type. We expect that the tunable p/np/n conductivity of MnO could open a new application prospect for the wurtzite semiconductor materials.