Nitrogen incorporation in homoepitaxial ZnO CVD epilayers

ZnO:N thin films have been deposited on oxygen and zinc terminated polar surfaces of ZnO. The nitrogen incorporation in the epilayers, using NH(3) as doping source, was investigated as a function of the growth temperature in the range between 380 degrees C and 580 degrees C. We used Raman spectroscopy and low temperature photoluminescence to investigate the doping properties. It turned out that the nitrogen incorporation strongly depends on both, the surface polarity of the epitaxial films and the applied growth temperatures. In our CVD process low growth temperatures and Zn-terminated substrate surfaces clearly favour the nitrogen incorporation in the ZnO thin films. (C) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim