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Recently, a review article of Prof. Yunbin He’s group, entitled “Multi-component ZnO alloys: Bandgap engineering, hetero-structures, and optoelectronic devices” was published in an authoritative review journal Materials Science & Engineering R (MSE-R). Hubei University is the corresponding institution of this paper. Doctoral student Teng Zhang and Prof. Mingkai Li are the first co-authors, and Prof. Yunbin He is the corresponding author of the paper.

The desire for developing ultraviolet optoelectronic devices has prompted extensive studies toward wide-bandgap semiconductor ZnO and its related alloys. Bandgap engineering as well as p-type doping is the key toward practical applications of ZnO. In recent years, significant progress has been made in the bandgap engineering of ZnO via the formation of multi-component alloys, but stable and reproducible p-type doping of ZnO remains a formidable challenge.

This article (34 pages in length) has reviewed recent advances in the experimental and theoretical studies on bandgap engineering of ZnO by formation of multi-component alloys, and the development of related hetero-structures and optoelectronic devices in the past decade. In particular, it summarizes the extensive research on ZnO alloys of Prof. He's group, which has been reported in more than 20 research articles within the past 10 years or so. The review closes with outlooking the likely developing trend of multi-component alloys for the bandgap engineering of ZnO and rational construction of related heterostructures, and the potential and pathway of multi-component alloys in settling the long-standing bottle-neck issue of p-type doping of ZnO.

It is worth noting that, the research work of Prof. Yunbin He's group is focused on exploration of wide-bandgap oxide semiconductors such as ZnO, SnO₂, and Ga₂O₃, and their related optoelectronic devices, and concerns ferroelectric materials and devices for energy transformation and storage, as well as controllable syntheses of nanomaterials for photoelectric sensing applications. In recent years, Prof. He's group has been granted for more than 30 research projects from the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Department of Science and Technology of Hubei Province, and Wuhan Science and Technology Bureau, etc. The group has published over 200 research articles in Science-Citation-Index journals including Nature Mater. , Nat. Commun. , Phys. Rev. Lett. , Adv. Electron. Mater. , Appl. Phys. Lett., etc., and applied for more than 60 international and domestic invention patents with 2 international and over 30 domestic ones granted. Moreover, Prof. He has given about 20 invited talks at relevant international and domestic academic conferences.

Link to the article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927796X21000565