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Analysis of the Conduction Mechanism and Copper Vacancy Density in p-type Cu$_{2}$O Thin Films

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Flewitt, AJ 

Abstract

A quantitative and analytical investigation on the conduction mechanism in p-type cuprous oxide (Cu2O) thin films is performed based on analysis of the relative dominance of trap-limited and grain-boundary-limited conduction. It is found that carrier transport in as-deposited Cu2O is governed by grain-boundary-limited conduction (GLC), while after high-temperature annealing, GLC becomes insignificant and trap-limited conduction (TLC) dominates. This suggests that the very low Hall mobility of as-deposited Cu2O is due to significant GLC, and the Hall mobility enhancement by high-temperature annealing is determined by TLC. Evaluation of the grain size and the energy barrier height at the grain boundary shows an increase in the grain size and a considerable decrease in the energy barrier height after high-temperature annealing, which is considered to be the cause of the significant reduction in the GLC effect. Additionally, the density of copper vacancies was extracted; this quantitatively shows that an increase in annealing temperature leads to a reduction in copper vacancies.

Description

Keywords

40 Engineering, 4016 Materials Engineering, 34 Chemical Sciences

Journal Title

Scientific Reports

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2045-2322
2045-2322

Volume Title

7

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M013650/1)
The support of this work by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through project EP/M013650/1 is acknowledged.