ZnO Devices and Applications: A Review of Current Status and Future Prospects

ZnO is an attractive material for applications in electronics, photonics, acoustics, and sensing. In optical emitters, its high exciton binding energy (60 meV) gives ZnO an edge over other semiconductors such as GaN if reproducible and reliable p-type doping in ZnO were to be achieved, which currently remains to be the main obstacle for realization of bipolar devices. On the electronic side, ZnO holds some potential in transparent thin film transistors (TFTs) owing to its high optical transmittivity and high conductivity. Among the other promising areas of application for ZnO are acoustic wave devices, due to large electromechanical coupling in ZnO, and devices utilizing nanowires/nanorods such as biosensors and gas sensors and solar cells, since it is relatively easy to produce such forms of ZnO nanostructures, which have good charge carrier transport properties and high crystalline quality. Despite the significant progress made, there is still a number of important issues that need to be resolved before ZnO can be transitioned to commercial use, not to mention the stiff competition it is facing with GaN, which is much more mature in terms of devices. In this paper, recent progress in device applications of ZnO is discussed and a review of critical issues for realization of ZnO-based devices is given.