Electronic band structure and transport studies of oxide materials

Abstract: Oxides provide an almost unlimited source of materials with exotic properties including super-conductivity and magnetism. The emergent field of oxide electronics comes as a replacement of the widely successful field of study that included research on transistor-like structures made from semiconductors, that were mainly silicon based. Research in the area of oxide electronics is mostly motivated by the fact that the limits of what can be done with the current generation of electronics have been approached. Barium tin oxide (BaSnO3) is a transparent oxide mate-rial with a perfect cubic perovskite structure. It is an insulator in the bulk with a wide band gap. However, when lightly doped with La, BaSnO3 becomes conducting while retaining its trans-parency. As a transparent conducting oxide (TCO) material, bulk single crystals of La-doped BaSnO3 exhibit outstanding electrical and physical properties. Despite its wide band gap, bulk La-doped BaSnO3 displays a very high room temperature electron mobility compared to that of conventional TCO materials. It is also stable, keeping its intrinsic and extrinsic properties under high thermal stresses in various gas environments. These characteristics make La-doped BaSnO3 a suitable material for applications such as optical electrodes in solar cells, smart coatings, sensors, flat panels and liquid crystal displays as well as in optoelectronics...D.Phil. (Physics