Fluorine doping: a feasible solution to enhancing the conductivity of high-resistance wide bandgap Mg(0.51)Zn(0.49)O active components

N-type doping of high-resistance wide bandgap semiconductors, wurtzite high-Mg-content Mg(x)Zn(1–x)O for instance, has always been a fundamental application-motivated research issue. Herein, we report a solution to enhancing the conductivity of high-resistance Mg(0.51)Zn(0.49)O active components, which has been reliably achieved by fluorine doping via radio-frequency plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxial growth. Fluorine dopants were demonstrated to be effective donors in Mg(0.51)Zn(0.49)O single crystal film having a solar-blind 4.43 eV bandgap, with an average concentration of 1.0 × 10(19) F/cm(3).The dramatically increased carrier concentration (2.85 × 10(17) cm(−3) vs ~10(14) cm(−3)) and decreased resistivity (129 Ω · cm vs ~10(6) Ω cm) indicate that the electrical properties of semi-insulating Mg(0.51)Zn(0.49)O film can be delicately regulated by F doping. Interestingly, two donor levels (17 meV and 74 meV) associated with F were revealed by temperature-dependent Hall measurements. A Schottky type metal-semiconductor-metal ultraviolet photodetector manifests a remarkably enhanced photocurrent, two orders of magnitude higher than that of the undoped counterpart. The responsivity is greatly enhanced from 0.34 mA/W to 52 mA/W under 10 V bias. The detectivity increases from 1.89 × 10(9) cm Hz(1/2)/W to 3.58 × 10(10) cm Hz(1/2)/W under 10 V bias at room temperature.These results exhibit F doping serves as a promising pathway for improving the performance of high-Mg-content Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O-based devices.