The carrier transport mechanism and band offset at the interface of ZnO/n-Si(111) heterojunction

The ZnO films were deposited on the surface of n-Si(111) substrate by pulsed laser deposition for fabrication of ZnO/n-Si(111) heterojunction. The carrier transport mechanism, deep level defects and band offsets at the interface of ZnO/n-Si(111) heterojunction were investigated by current- voltage measurement, deep level transient spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. The results showed that the barrier height and ideality factor values varied in the different linear voltage range by using the thermionic emission model, which was due to the deep level participated in carrier transport. Meanwhile, it was found that one deep level appeared at the interface of ZnO/n-Si(111) heterojunction with densities of the deep level about 8.5 × 1016 cm−3 and activation energies about 224 m eV, which originated from O2− vacancies of ZnO films. In addition, the valence band offset of the ZnO/n-Si(111) heterojunction can be calculated to be −2.4 ± 0.15 eV. The conduction band offset is deduced to be −3.5 ± 0.15 eV from the valence band offset value, indicating that the band offsets of ZnO/n-Si(111) heterojunction is a type-II band alignment.