Shift of optical absorption edge in SnO2 films with high concentrations of nitrogen grown by chemical vapor deposition

The optical and electrical properties of n-type SnO2 films with high concentrations of nitrogen (SnO2:N) grown by chemical vapor deposition are studied. The carrier concentration increases from 4.1 × 1018 to 3.9 × 1019 cm−3 and the absorption edge shifts from 4.26 to 4.08 eV with increasing NH3 flow rate. Typical Urbach tails were observed from the absorption spectra and the Urbach energy increases from 0.321 to 0.526 eV with increasing NH3 flow rate. An “effective” absorption edge of about 4.61 eV was obtained for all investigated samples from fitting the extrapolations of the Urbach tails. Burstein-Moss effect, electron-impurity, and electron-electron interactions are shown to play a minor role for the shift of the absorption edges in SnO2:N thin films.