Nitrogen doping during atomic layer epitaxial growth of ZnSe

This letter reports the growth and characterization of ZnSe:N layers by atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) using a nitrogen rf-plasma source. The ALE-grown ZnSe:N layers have been investigated in terms of in situ reflection high electron energy diffraction and ex situ capacitance–voltage profiling and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The net acceptor concentration in the ALE-grown layer has been obtained as high as 1.2×1018 cm−3 and the ALE layers of ZnSe:N show reduced number of compensating deep centers compared with the ZnSe:N grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The effects of the Fermi level at a growing surface on the generation of compensating donors with a binding energy of 57 meV are also discussed.