Density functional investigation of structural, electronic and optical properties of Ge-doped ZnO

Recent experiments reported fascinating phenomenon of photoluminescence (PL) blueshift in Ge-doped ZnO. To understand it, we examined the structural, electronic and optical properties of Ge-doped ZnO (ZnO:Ge) systematically by means of density functional theory calculations. Our results show that Ge atoms tend to cluster in heavily doped ZnO. Ge clusters can limit the conductivity of doped ZnO but reinforce the near-band-edge emission. The substitutional Ge for Zn leads to Fermi level pinning in the conduction band, which indicates Ge-doped ZnO is of n-type conductivity character. It is found that the delocalized Ge 4s states hybridize with conduction band bottom, and is dominant in the region near the Fermi level, suggesting that Ge-4s states provides major free carriers in ZnO:Ge crystal. The observed blueshift of PL in Ge-doped ZnO originates from the electron transition energy from the valence band to the empty levels above Fermi level larger than the gap of undoped ZnO. The electron transition between the gap states induced by oxygen vacancy and conduction band minimum may be the origin of the new PL peak at 590 nm.