Boosting the transparency of metallic SrNbO3 through Ti doping

TL;DR

This study enhances the transparency and electrical conductivity of strontium niobate thin films through Ti doping, outperforming traditional materials like ITO, and provides insights for designing advanced transparent conductors using theoretical modeling.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Ti doping in SrNbO3 improves its optoelectronic properties, achieving a high figure-of-merit and guiding future transparent conductor development with theoretical insights.

Findings

Achieved a figure-of-merit of 10.3 for Ti-doped SrNbO3.

Ti doping shifts plasma frequency and reduces electronic correlations.

Outperforms ITO and other transparent conductors in optoelectronic capabilities.

Abstract

In recent years, various materials have been developed to reduce the reliance of industries on Indium, a primary component of transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) used in the current generation of devices. The leading candidates for indium free TCOs are strontium vanadates, niobates and molybdates -- strongly correlated perovskite systems that exhibit high intrinsic electrical conductivity and optimal transparency. In this work, we focus on the strontium niobate thin films and manipulate its optical conductivity by Ti doping, which shifts the plasma frequency and reduces electronic correlations. This allows us to achieve a low resistance for Ti doped SNO thin films, while maintaining a high transparency in the visible spectrum. We obtain the optimal figure-of-merit (FOM) of 10.3 ($10^{-3}\Omega^{-1}$) for $x = 0.3$. This FOM significantly outperforms the optoelectronic capabilities of Tin-doped Indium oxide (ITO) and several other proposed transparent conductor materials. Our research paves the way for designing the next generation of transparent conductors, guided by insights from density-functional theory (DFT) and dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT).