High mobility approaching the intrinsic limit in Ta-doped SnO(2) films epitaxially grown on TiO(2) (001) substrates

Achieving high mobility in SnO(2), which is a typical wide gap oxide semiconductor, has been pursued extensively for device applications such as field effect transistors, gas sensors, and transparent electrodes. In this study, we investigated the transport properties of lightly Ta-doped SnO(2) (Sn(1−x)Ta(x)O(2), TTO) thin films epitaxially grown on TiO(2) (001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. The carrier density (n(e)) of the TTO films was systematically controlled by x. Optimized TTO (x = 3 × 10(−3)) films with n(e) ~ 1 × 10(20) cm(−3) exhibited a very high Hall mobility (μ(H)) of 130 cm(2)V(−1)s(−1) at room temperature, which is the highest among SnO(2) films thus far reported. The μ(H) value coincided well with the intrinsic limit of μ(H) calculated on the assumption that only phonon and ionized impurities contribute to the carrier scattering. The suppressed grain-boundary scattering might be explained by the reduced density of the {101} crystallographic shear planes.