Hall and Seebeck measurements estimate the thickness of a (buried) carrier system: Identifying interface electrons in In-doped SnO2 films

Abstract

We propose a simple method based on the combination of Hall and Seebeck measurements to estimate the thickness of a carrier system within a semiconductor film. As an example, this method can distinguish “bulk” carriers, with homogeneous depth distribution, from “sheet” carriers, that are accumulated within a thin layer. The thickness of the carrier system is calculated as the ratio of the integral sheet carrier concentration, extracted from Hall measurements, to the volume carrier concentration, derived from the measured Seebeck coefficient of the same sample. For rutile SnO2, the necessary relation of Seebeck coefficient to volume electron concentration in the range of 3 × 1017 to 3 × 1020 cm−3 has been experimentally obtained from a set of single crystalline thin films doped with varying Sb-doping concentrations and unintentionally doped bulk samples, and is given as a “calibration curve.” Using this calibration curve, our method demonstrates the presence of interface electrons in homogeneously deep-acceptor (In) doped SnO2 films on sapphire substrates.