Zinc Oxide as a semiconductor?

Zinc oxide is a “jack of all trades” – thousands of tons are produced all over the world every year for a wide range of uses. Zinc oxide has been used for everything from a food additive to a sun screening agent. It is even a significant semiconductor, although the long-awaited breakthrough in this field is yet to come. Perfect doping -- important in the production of semiconductor devices -- is not yet possible.

A team of chemical scientists at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, working under the auspices of Prof. Christof Wöll, is a step closer to unveiling the reason. They were experimentally able to provide evidence that hydrogen atoms disturb the process. Controlled concentration of hydrogen atoms during the production of intrinsic zinc oxide is thus the key to the routine use of ZnO as semiconductor...