Structural and optical properties of indium-doped highly-conductive ZnO bulk crystals grown by the hydrothermal technique

Abstract

Indium-doped ZnO bulk crystals grown by the hydrothermal method are highly-conductive, with resistivity at 0.01 Ωcm at room temperature as revealed by Hall-effect measurement. In this paper we report on structural and optical properties of these crystals. The grown In:ZnO crystals have been studied by high resolution X-ray diffraction, micro-Raman scattering and low-temperature photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence. It was found that the c lattice parameter of the grown In:ZnO crystal expanded 0.06% with respect to the lithium-doped ZnO crystal seed, and the In-doped ZnO overgrew the seed crystal pseudomorphically but with high quality crystallinity; the X-ray rocking curves show the FWHM of the Zn face and O faces are only 0.05o and 0.1o; and the indium concentration in the crystal reaches the solubility limit. Raman spectra show strain relaxation gradually from the regrowth interface as well as a weak spectral feature at 723 cm-1. The peak at 312 cm-1 noticed in hydrothermally grown In:ZnO nanostructures does not appear in our In-doped crystals, indicating that this peak may be associated with specific defects (e.g. surface related) of the nanostructures. Photoluminescence measurements show that an indium donor bound exciton peak I9 (In0X) is the dominant peak in the PL spectrum, located at 3.3586 eV on the zinc face and 3.3577 eV on the oxygen face. Both of them deviated from the consensus literature value of 3.3567 eV, probably due to strain in the crystal induced by impurities