Probing disorder in high-pressure cubic tin (IV) oxide: a combined X-ray diffraction and absorption study

The transparent conducting oxide, SnO2, is a promising optoelectronic material with predicted tailorable properties via pressure-mediated band gap opening. While such electronic properties are typically modeled assuming perfect crystallinity, disordering of the O sublattice under pressure is qualitatively known. Here a quantitative approach is thus employed, combining extended X-ray absorption fine-structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy with X-ray diffraction, to probe the extent of Sn — O bond anharmonicities in the high-pressure cubic (Pa\bar{3}) SnO2 – formed as a single phase and annealed by CO2 laser heating to 2648 ± 41   K at 44.5   GPa. This combinational study reveals and quantifies a large degree of disordering in the O sublattice, while the Sn lattice remains ordered. Moreover, this study describes implementation of direct laser heating of non-metallic samples by CO2 laser alongside EXAFS, and the high quality of data which may be achieved at high pressures in a diamond anvil cell when appropriate thermal annealing is applied.

Source: Journal of Synchrotron Radiation - May 13, 2019 Category: Physics Authors: Sneed, D. Kearney, J.S.C. Smith, D. Smith, J.S. Park, C. Salamat, A. Tags: extreme conditions EXAFS XRD laser heating SnO2 diamond anvil cell high pressure research papers Source Type: research