The crucial role of defect structure in understanding the electrical properties of spark plasma sintered antimony doped barium stannate

Abstract

Abstract The influence of structural defects in spark plasma sintered BaSn1-xSbxO3 (BSSO, x = 0.00 and 0.08) ceramic samples on their electrical properties was investigated in the temperature range of 300–4 K. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed the presence of point defects, primarily oxygen vacancies (VO) and mixed oxidation states of tin (Sn2+/Sn4+) in both samples. As a result, the undoped BSSO sample exibited a non-standard semiconductor behavior, retaining its temperature-dependent resistivity. The electrical resistivity of the doped samples was two orders of magnitude lower than that of the undoped sample. The presence of structural defects such as VO, mixed oxidation states of the constituent elements, and significant amounts of O− species make the electrical resistivity of the doped sample constant in the temperature range of 300–70 K, indicating heavily-doped semiconductor behavior.