Dopant homogeneity and transport properties of impurity-doped oxide nanowires

Abstract

Controlling and understanding an impurity doping on semiconductor oxide nanowires grown by the vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) method remains an important challenge. Homogeneous dopant distribution within oxide nanowires has been assumed without the direct evaluations to interpret the transport properties. Here we report the direct measurements of dopant distributions for Ta-doped SnO2 nanowires. We find that differences in dopant incorporations between VLS and vapor-solid growth processes give rise to a heavily doped shell surrounding an underdoped core. Thus, understanding the dopant incorporation pathways is essential to designing and controlling impurity doping on VLS grown oxide nanowires.