Epitaxial Growth, p-type Doping and Optoelectronic Devices of CuAlO2-based Transparent Conductive Oxides Thin Films

Epitaxial growth of single crystal transparent conducting oxides thin films with controlled p-type conductivity is the fundamental prerequisite process for fabrication of high performance transparent p-n junction optoelectronic devices, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and ambipolar light-emitting transistors (LETs). In this work, the researchers propose to fabricate epitaxial single crystal CuAlO2 films using a simple reactive sputtering technology. This method has been rarely reported on the epitaxial growth of the delafossite films. In particular, it has not been exploited for a controlled in-situ doping of the films using such dopants as N (carried by NO2) and Ag to enhance their p-type conductivity. Mastering this technology will lead to the next step, design and construction of p- CuAlO2 films-based multifunctional optoelectronic devices including p-CuAlO2 thin-film fieldeffect transistor (TFET), n-F16CuPc/Tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)-aluminum (Alq3)/p-CuAlO2 heterostructural LED and ambipolar LET.