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Control of the Electrical Properties in Spinel Oxides by Manipulating the Cation Disorder
Author(s) -
Ndione Paul F.,
Shi Yezhou,
Stevanovic Vladan,
Lany Stephan,
Zakutayev Andriy,
Parilla Philip A.,
Perkins John D.,
Berry Joseph J.,
Ginley David S.,
Toney Michael F.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.201302535
Subject(s) - materials science , spinel , electrical resistivity and conductivity , conductivity , doping , annealing (glass) , non blocking i/o , diffraction , pulsed laser deposition , condensed matter physics , thin film , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , chemistry , composite material , optics , metallurgy , physics , electrical engineering , engineering , biochemistry , catalysis
In this work, the impact of cation disorder on the electrical properties of biaxially textured Co 2 ZnO 4 and Co 2 NiO 4 thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition are investigated using a combination of experiment and theory. Resonant elastic X‐ray diffraction along with conductivity measurements both before and after post‐deposition annealing show that Co 2 ZnO 4 and Co 2 NiO 4 exhibit opposite changes of the conductivity with cation disorder, which can be traced back to their different ground‐state atomic structures, being normal and inverse spinel, respectively. Electronic structure calculations identify a self‐doping mechanism as the origin of conductivity. A novel thermodynamic model describes the non‐equilibrium cation disorder in terms of an effective temperature. This work offers a way of controlling the conductivity in spinels in a quantitative manner by controlling the cation disorder and a new design principle whereby non‐equilibrium growth can be used to create beneficial disorder.