Boron phosphide as a p-type transparent conductor: Optical absorption and transport through electron-phonon coupling
(2020) Physical Review Materials — Vol. 4, n° 6, p. 65401 (2020)
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- Authors
Ha, Viet-anh 
Karasulu, Bora Brunin, Guillaume
- Abstract
- Boron phosphide has recently been identified as a potential high-hole-mobility transparent conductingmaterial. This promise arises from its low hole effective masses. However, boron phosphide has a relativelysmall, 2 eV, indirect bandgap which will affect its transparency. In this work, we computationally study bothoptical absorption across the indirect gap and phonon-limited electronic transport to quantify the potential ofboron phosphide as ap-type transparent conductor. We find that phonon-mediated indirect optical absorptionis weak in the visible spectrum and that the phonon-limited hole mobility is very high (around 900 cm2/Vs)at room temperature. This exceptional mobility comes from the combination of a low hole effective mass andvery weak scattering by polar phonon modes. We rationalize the weak scattering by the less ionic bonding inboron phosphide compared to oxides. We suggest that this could be a general advantage of nonoxides forp-typetransparent conducting applications. Using our computed properties, we assess the transparent conductor figureof merit of boron phosphide and show that it exceeds by one order of magnitude that of establishedp-typetransparent conductors, confirming the potential of this material.
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Citations
Ha, V.-a., Karasulu, B., Maezono, R., Brunin, G., Varley, J. B., Rignanese, G.-M., Monserrat, B., & Hautier, G. (2020). Boron phosphide as a p-type transparent conductor: Optical absorption and transport through electron-phonon coupling. Physical Review Materials, 4(6), 65401. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevmaterials.4.065401 (Original work published 2020)