Electrons with energies above 1.6MeV created acceptors and donors in single crystals. Greater damage was observed for irradiation in the [00•1] direction (Zn face) than in the [00•1] direction (O face). The main annealing stage occurred at 300 to 325C, and was much sharper for defects that were produced by Zn-face irradiation, than for those which resulted from O-face irradiation. The defects appeared to have a chain nature, rather than being simple near-neighbor vacancy/interstitial Frenkel pairs. These experiments suggested that the present oxide was much more radiation-hard than were Si, GaAs or GaN.

Production and Annealing of Electron Irradiation Damage in ZnO. Look, D.C., Reynolds, D.C., Hemsky, J.W., Jones, R.L., Sizelove, J.R.: Applied Physics Letters, 1999, 75[6], 811-3