Pulsed Laser Deposition of ZnO-based Materials for Optoelectronic Device Applications

ZnO and related oxide compounds are of great research interest recently for their applications in visible to UV light sources, high temperature electronics components, window materials for solar cells, biosensors, etc. This wide bandgap semiconductor has several advantages over GaN due to its large exciton binding energy and the availability of bulk single crystal wafers. However, several challenges related to the material and technical aspects of ZnO still limit its true potential in a variety of applications. This project, aims to deposit high-quality ZnO and related heterostructures and alloys and to investigate p-type doping issues by pulsed laser deposition technique for the applications in blue/ultraviolet lasers and detectors.