The effect of native vacancy defects on electronic and magnetic properties of ZnO:Mn system

Abstract

In this paper, the plane wave ultra-soft pseudopotential method was performed to analyze the effect of neutral Zn vacancy (V[Formula: see text]) and O vacancy (V[Formula: see text]) on the electronic and magnetic properties of Mn-doped ZnO systems. In a [Formula: see text] ZnO:Mn supercell, the sites of V[Formula: see text] and V[Formula: see text] were set as nearest neighbor, next nearest neighbor and far nearest neighbor relative to Mn site, respectively. The results indicated that V[Formula: see text] is easier to be produced than V[Formula: see text] in the ZnO:Mn system, and both kinds of defects are more likely to be generated in the nearest neighbor of Mn site. Meanwhile, the ZnO:Mn-V[Formula: see text] system is p-type conductive. The farther the distance between V[Formula: see text] and Mn, the better the conductivity of the system. Contrary to V[Formula: see text], the ZnO:Mn-V[Formula: see text] system is n-type conductive. The farther the distance between V[Formula: see text] and Mn, the worse the conductivity of the system. Furthermore, the ZnO:Mn systems containing neutral V[Formula: see text] or V[Formula: see text] are both likely to be in antiferromagnetic phase. However, the presence of V[Formula: see text] will enhance the possibility, while V[Formula: see text] will weaken it.