Influences of silica additive on sintering and Hall effect of novel transparent In2O3 semiconductive ceramics

Abstract Polycrystalline transparent In2O3 semiconductive ceramics are successfully fabricated by oxygen atmosphere sintering for the first time. The starting rounded In2O3 particles are obtained via pyrolyzing the nanoplate-like hydrated basic sulfate precursor prepared by a chemical precipitation route using hexamethylenetetramine as the precipitant. The silica additive dissolves into the In2O3 lattice to form an interstitial solid solution, which promotes the diffusion rate during high-temperature densification process and thus helps to achieve good optical quality for In2O3 ceramics. The created interstitial oxygen further compensates the oxygen vacancy in the ceramic body to result in a higher resistivity and lower carrier concentration / carrier mobility. The optical qualities of In2O3 ceramics are also found to have slight effects on the resistivity, carrier mobility, carrier concentration, and Hall coefficient.