Evidence for an electrically conducting layer at the native zinc oxide surface

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Evidence for an electrically conducting layer at the native zinc oxide surface

Annual Meeting of the German Physical Society (DPG)

Measurements of the electrical properties of high-resistivity zinc oxide (ZnO) are strongly influenced by the sample ambient. Temperature-dependent Hall-effect measurements were performed on Li- and Cu-doped bulk crystals in both air and vacuum. Repeating the measurements under a given test ambient produced stable results. Changing the ambient systematically changed the measured results. We explain this behavior in terms of a surface conducting channel that exists in vacuum but is destroyed upon exposure to air. We propose that the surface conducting layer is eliminated in air due to changes of the surface condition (i.e., molecular adsorption from the gas phase and/or surface reconstruction mechanisms).

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citation

Schmidt, O. ; Geis, A. W. ; Kiesel, P. ; Johnson, N. M. ; Waag, A.; Doehler, G. Evidence for an electrically conducting layer at the native zinc oxide surface. Annual Meeting of the German Physical Society (DPG); 2005 March 4-9; Berlin; Germany.