Effect of Nitrogen’s ion Implantation on Properties of ZnO Thin Films

The effect of nitrogen ion implantation on the zinc oxide semiconductor have been investigated. To this end, a thin layer of ZnO with thickness of 120 nm was bombarded with N+ ion with energy of 50 keV at a dose rate of 1014 (ion/cm2) with duration of 3 seconds. The effect of the N+ implantation on the crystalline structure was investigated by XRD and the surface morphology was investigated by the AFM and SEM. Also, the electrical conductivity and electrical resistance were measured by the point probe devices. Comparison of XRD diffraction patterns before and after ion implantation reveals that the crystalline structures show no specific changes, but only a very small shift to smaller angles. By comparison of AFM results before and after ion implantation, it is shown that the decrease in the roughness parameters doubled, which confirms the effectiveness of nitrogen ion implantation. The SEM images show that the uniformity of distribution of the particle sizes increases in nano scale after nitrogen implantation. In addition, it was found that the hardness of the zinc oxide structure was increased and the conductivity was decreased after nitrogen implanting.