Abstract
The stability of locally-associated Al and In impurities in zinc oxide (ZnO) was investigated by means of the time-differential perturbed angular correlation (TDPAC) method with the 111Cd(←111In) probe. We found that Al and In impurities associate with each other by their thermal diffusion in air, and the association process irreversibly proceeds at high temperature. In vacuum, however, it was revealed that the rigid bonding between Al and In ions dissociates by heat treatment at temperatures higher than 873 K, and this dissociation process is enhanced with increasing annealing temperature. The contrastive atmosphere dependence of the stability of the association between Al and In in ZnO is discussed based on the variation of the TDPAC spectra against heat-treatment temperature.
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