X-ray absorption spectroscopy elucidates the impact of structural disorder on electron mobility in amorphous zinc-tin-oxide thin films

Abstract

We investigate the correlation between the atomic structures of amorphous zinc-tin-oxide (a-ZTO) thin films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and their electronic transport properties. We perform synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the K-edges of Zn and Sn with varying [Zn]/[Sn] compositions in a-ZTO thin films. In extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements, signal attenuation from higher-order shells confirms the amorphous structure of a-ZTO thin films. Both quantitative EXAFS modeling and X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) reveal that structural disorder around Zn atoms increases with increasing [Sn]. Field- and Hall-effect mobilities are observed to decrease with increasing structural disorder around Zn atoms, suggesting that the degradation in electron mobility may be correlated with structural changes.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jun 16, 2014
Source ID
10.1063/1.4884115

Entities

People

  • Carlo U Segre
  • Jaeyeong Heo
  • Roy G. Gordon
  • Sang Woon Lee
  • Sin Cheng Siah
  • Tomohiro Shibata
  • Tonio Buonassisi
  • Yun Seog Lee

Organizations

  • Chonnam National University
  • Harvard University
  • Illinois Institute of Technology
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Office of Naval Research

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nanofabrication and Microfabrication.
  • Quantum spin resonance or Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene