Temperature-dependent Hall and photoluminescence evidence for conduction-band edge shift induced by alloying ZnO with magnesium

This work discusses the effect of conduction-band edge shift induced by alloying ZnO with magnesium. Temperature-dependent Hall and temperature-dependent photoluminescence measurements are used to characterize the epitaxial Zn(1-x)Mg(x)O thin films grown on (111) Si using intervening epitaxial Lu(2)O(3) buffer layers, which prove that the addition of Mg in ZnO shifts the conduction-band edge to higher energy, thus increasing the activation energy of the defect donor states and reducing the n-type background carrier concentration. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3236771]