Production of cobalt doped ZnO semiconductor materials and the investigation of their electrical properties

The zinc oxide (ZnO) is a key technological material which have a good semiconductor characteristics. The lack of a centre of symmetry in wurtzite, combined with large electromechanical coupling, results in strong piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties and the consequent use of ZnO in mechanical actuators and piezoelectric sensors. On the other hand, ZnO is a wide band-gap (3.37 eV) compound of the semiconductor, so that it is suitable for short wavelength optoelectronic applications.In this study, Co element in low rate is added to ZnO and then four different types of new semiconductor material were produced. The adding of low rate cobalt to ZnO was realized through physical and sintering methods. The samples were sintered at 900, 1100 ve 1300 oC and the sintering time under atmospheric air was chosen as three hours. To determine of the microstructures and conductivities of sintered materials, they have been used the measurement methods such as Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), x-Ray Diffraction Analysis (XRD) and modern electrical conductivity measurement techniques. It has been shown that the increasing of cobalt amount in ZnO and also the increasing of the sintering temperature cause the raising of the electrical conductivity of samples, whereby the crystallographic structure of ZnO didn?t changed.