Disorder-induced localization in doped ZnO by different sintering atmosphere

Abstract

Different sintering atmosphere could tune the electrical resistivity and lead to a metal-insulator transition for the doped ZnO ceramics. However, there was no satisfactory explanation for the metal-insulator transition and a lack of study about the low-temperature charge transport properties which is essential for further improvements of electrical properties. In this work, a systematic study of electrical properties of doped ZnO ceramics by different sintering atmosphere was presented. The results revealed that the metal-insulator transition was not only owing to the increased carrier concentration predicted by Mott but also owing to the weak localization theory known as Anderson localization. Moreover, the sintering atmosphere could tune the energy gap by Burstein-Moss effect. It can be concluded that the control of sintering atmosphere is an effective way to tune the electrical properties and energy gap for further optimization the performance.