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Electron transport in semiconducting SnO2: Intentional bulk donors and acceptors, the interface, and the surface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

Oliver Bierwagen ,
Takahiro Nagata ,
Mark E. White ,
Min-Ying Tsai  and
James S. Speck
Oliver Bierwagen*
Affiliation:
Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik, D-10117 Berlin, Germany; and Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
Takahiro Nagata
Affiliation:
National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan; and Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
Mark E. White
Affiliation:
Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
Min-Ying Tsai
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
James S. Speck
Affiliation:
Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: bierwagen@pdi-berlin.de
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Abstract

The transport properties of doped and undoped, high quality, plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy grown tin dioxide (SnO2) thin films are reviewed. Intentional doping can vary the SnO2 resistivity over more than seven orders of magnitude from a transparent conducting oxide-like conductivity up to the semi-insulating range. A region of high unintentional n-type conductivity was identified in the substrate interface region and had to be accounted for. Sb was a well-behaved shallow donor up to the regime of conducting oxides. In and Ga were too deep acceptors to achieve p-type conductivity but were suitable to render SnO2 semi-insulating. While the surface accumulation layer strongly influenced contact properties, its conductance was negligible. The methodology used here for studying the transport can also be applied to other semiconducting oxides.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 27 , Issue 17: Focus Issue: Oxide Semiconductors , 14 September 2012 , pp. 2232 - 2236
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2012

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References

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