A study of ion‐implanted zinc in GaAs has been made using three annealing techniques:e‐beam, graphite strip heating, and furnace annealing in an arsine ambient. The highest hole concentrations, 7–8×1019cm−3, were obtained using electron‐beam annealing. Graphite strip heating and electron‐beam annealing were able to electrically activate 100% of the implanted dose. The effect of strain on the activation of the zinc has been demonstrated by comparing chemical‐vapor‐deposited Si3N4with reactively evaporated AlN encapsulants.