Origin of p-type doping difficulty in ZnO: The impurity perspective

We investigate the p-type doping difficulty in ZnO by first-principles total-energy calculations. The dopants being considered are group-I elements Li, Na, and K and group-V elements N, P, and As. We find that substitutional group-I elements are shallow acceptors, while substitutional group-V elements such as P and As are deep acceptors. The AX centers that convert acceptors into deep donors are found to be unstable except for P and As. Without compensation by intrinsic defects, the most likely cause for doping difficulty is the formation of interstitials for group-I elements and antisites for group-V elements. Among all the dopants studied here, N is a relatively better candidate for p-type ZnO.