Perovskite transparent conducting oxides: an ab initio study

We present an ab initio study of the electronic structure and of the formation energies of various point defects in BaSnO3 and SrGeO3. We show that La and Y impurities substituting Ba or Sr are shallow donors with a preferred 1+ charge state. These defects have a low formation energy within all the suitable equilibrium growth conditions considered. Oxygen vacancies behave as shallow donors as well, preferring the 2+ charge state. Their formation energies, however, are higher in most growth conditions, indicating a limited contribution to conductivity. The calculated electron effective mass in BaSnO3, with a value of 0.21 m(e), and the very high mobility reported recently in La-doped BaSnO3 single-crystals, suggest that remarkably low scattering rates can be achieved in the latter. In the case of SrGeO3, our results point to carrier density and mobility values in the low range for typical polycrystalline TCOs, in line with experiment.