Nitrogen dopant site within the ZnSe lattice as studied by ion beam analysis

Abstract

The N dopant site within the ZnSe lattice was investigated using the channeling technique in combination with nuclear reaction analysis (channeling-NRA). We used the nuclear reaction 15N (p,α) 12C for non-destructive N detection and improved the detection limit of N up to 1 × 10 17 cm −3. Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown ZnSe doped with 15N as high as 2–6 × 10 18 cm −3 was the subject of investigation. We found that a large fraction of N is distributed randomly and that some N are in tetrahedral interstitial sites. Our analysis established that the fraction of N distributed randomly and the fraction in the tetrahedral sites are increased and the fraction in the substitutional sites is decreased as the activation ratio (( N a N d)/[N]) decreases. We think that the randomly distributed N are likely to be neutral NN complex defects such as N in Se sites combining with N in Zn sites ( N Se N Zn) and that N in the tetrahedral sites (N tet) might form N SeN tet complex defects that neutralize the N Se acceptor activity.