Self-formation of high-field domain in epitaxial ZnO and its suppression in ZnO/MgZnO heterostructure

Microwave noise is used to study high-electric-field electronic properties of ZnO channels with electron densities in the range from 1017 to 1019 cm–3. The strong source of noise is observed to superimpose onto the standard hot-electron noise governed by the hot-electron energy relaxation. At a given current, the excess noise temperature Δ T n increases with the channel length, and values up to and above 10 000 K are reached. The steep dependence Δ T n ∝ I 12 on the current I approximately holds for the longest channels. The source of noise in question is suppressed in ZnO epilayers at high electron densities and in a ZnO/MgZnO heterostructure with two-dimensional electron gas. The observed results are evaluated and discussed in terms of the self-formation of high field domains. The estimated domain voltage U d increases with the current; the dependence is close to U d ∝ I 6. The domain self-formation is additionally confirmed by measuring the spectral density of current fluctuations; the usual hot-electron noise turns into shot noise as the current increases. The Fano factor demonstrates an increasing number of nearly ballistic electrons that traverse the self-supporting domain.