Recent advances in characteristics of ZnO semiconductor

Wurtzite ZnO, a wide-bandgap (3.437 eV at 2 K) semiconductor, has recently become a new research focus in the field of the wide-band gap semiconductors. It should be noted that ZnO also belongs to the oxide semiconductor which introduces some different characteristics for ZnO semiconductor from others such as GaN and SiC. The energy band structure, crystal defects, electronic transport property, p-type doping, etc. were studied as well as the fabrication and application of ZnO semiconductor. Some progress has been made and some issues still exist. Recent successes in the research of the characteristics of ZnO semiconductor was overviewed and discussed. The main advantages of ZnO are its large exciton binding energy (60 meV), its high field transmission properties and the environment-friendly growth processes for bulk and epitaxial ZnO crystal, which promises it's potential applications in the future electronic and opto-electronic fields. Up to now, its still an issue how to obtain reproducible high-quality p-type ZnO semiconductor.