Research Article |
Corresponding author: Andrey S. Shportenko ( kapmah666@yandex.com ) © 2021 Andrey S. Shportenko, Alexander M. Kislyuk, Andrei V. Turutin, Ilya V. Kubasov, Mikhail D. Malinkovich, Yuri N. Parkhomenko.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Shportenko AS, Kislyuk AM, Turutin AV, Kubasov IV, Malinkovich MD, Parkhomenko YN (2021) Effect of contact phenomena on the electrical conductivity of reduced lithium niobate. Modern Electronic Materials 7(4): 167-175. https://doi.org/10.3897/j.moem.7.4.78569
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Lithium niobate is a ferroelectric material finding a wide range of applications in optical and acoustic engineering. Annealing of lithium niobate crystals in an oxygen-free environment leads to appearance of black coloration and concomitant increasing electrical conductivity due to chemical reduction. There are plenty of literary data on the electrophysical properties of reduced lithium niobate crystals though contact phenomena occurring during electrical conductivity measurement as well as issues of interaction between the electrode material and the test specimens are almost disregarded. The effect of chromium and indium tin oxide electrodes on the results of measurements of electrophysical parameters at room temperature for lithium niobate specimens reduced at 1100 °C has been investigated. It was found that significant nonlinearities in the VACs of the specimens at below 5 V distort the specific resistivity readings for lithium niobate. This requires measurements at higher voltages. Impedance spectroscopy studies have shown that the measurement results are largely affected by capacities including those probably induced near the contacts. It has been shown that the experimental results are described adequately well by a model implying the presence of near-contact capacities that are parallel to the specimen’s own capacity. Possible mechanism of the induction of these capacities has been described and a hypothesis has been proposed of the high density of electron states at the electrode/specimen interface that can trap carriers, the concentration of trapped carriers growing with an increase in annealing duration.
ferroelectric, lithium niobate, monodomain crystal, reduction annealing, electrical conductivity, contact phenomena, chromium, indium tin oxide, impedance.
Lithium niobate (LiNbO3) is a ferroelectric oxide finding multiple applications in quantum optics, acousto- and optoelectronics engineering. Lithium niobate is used for the fabrication of surface acoustic wave delay lines and electrooptical laser radiation modulators and is a promising material for device applications, e.g. vibration sensors, dump energy collectors, actuators, magnetoelectric sensors and charged domain wall devices [
Most applications based on the electrical properties of lithium niobate require the possibility of controlling the electrical parameters of the material. For example lithium niobate based devices for operation at variable temperature face a big problem of parasitic pyroelectric currents [
Despite the plenty literary data on the effect of reduction heat treatment parameters on the electrophysical properties of lithium niobate, the effect of contact material on experimental results has been studied insufficiently yet. Most of earlier works did not justify the choice of contact material, this complicating comparison between results obtained by different research teams. Table
Parameter tested | Electrodes used | Ref. |
Optical properties and electrical conductivity of reduced lithium niobate at different temperatures | Conductive rubber | [ |
Surface coustic wave devices based on reduced lithium niobate | Aluminum / titanium sputtering | [ |
Electrical conductivity as a function of reduction temperature | – | [ |
Electrical conductivity as a function of reduction mode | Aluminum electrodes | [ |
Piezoelectric parameters and electrical conductivity of reduced lithium niobate | Platinum electrodes | [ |
Electrical conductivity of domain boundary in lithium niobate | Chromium / gold electrodes | [ |
High-temperature electrical conductivity of nonstiochiometric lithium niobate | Platinum electrodes | [ |
Electrical conductivity and pyroelectric properties of lithium niobate | Indium and aluminum electrodes | [ |
Electrical conductivity of lithium niobate and lithium tantalate | Chromium electrodes | [ |
Frequency dependences of dielectric permeability and dielectric loss tangent of lithium niobate | Silver paste electrodes | [ |
Below we analyze the effect of electrode material on the constant current volt-ampere characteristics of lithium niobate and room temperature electrophysical parameters as a function of frequency. These studies deliver data on the ohmicity of the contacts, specific resistivity of the specimen material and presence or absence of ionic currents through the specimen.
The specimens were made from a z-cut 0.5 mm thick lithium niobate wafer produced by Roditi International Corp. Ltd., UK, of congruent composition. The wafer was cut into rectangular specimens 15 × 7 mm2 in size. The specimens were vacuum annealed at a residual gas pressure of within 10–6 Torr (1 Torr ≈ 133.322 Pa) at 1050 °C for 2, 20 and 40 min. in a reactive furnace in a cell made of sapphire screens separated from the specimen by polycor spacers (VK-100 vacuum tight aluminum oxide ceramic). The specimens were placed on rails of the same material as the specimens (lithium niobate) for preventing diffusion of impurity atoms from the tackle. Schematic of the cell is shown in Fig.
The as-annealed specimens were cut into 7 × 7 mm2 squares onto which indium lead oxide and chromium (Cr) electrodes were deposited by magnetron sputtering through a mask. The as-deposited films might contain up to 10 at.% oxygen (for Cr) and up to 4 at.% nitrogen. The specimens were placed into a holder that minimized mechanical impact (soft pressure contacts).
The constant current electrical conductivity was measured on an experimental set consisting of a (MOTECH LPS 305 DC source, a Keithley 6485 picoampermeter, a switching unit and a measuring cell in the form of a screened box in which the holder with the specimen was placed. Schematic of the experimental setup is shown in Fig.
The electrical conductivity was measured in two stages with different voltage amplitudes and measurement steps (Fig.
It was reported earlier [
The equivalent circuit shown in Fig.
where i is the imaginary unit and f is the applied bias frequency.
The equivalent circuit shown in Fig.
where n is the exponent describing the phase shift of the variable component of the signal at the lithium niobate / contact interface.
The resistivity of the electrodes and the measuring wiring was neglected since this figure is more than two orders of magnitude smaller than R and RVAC.
Capacities related to specimen areas and specific resistivities ρimp were calculated from the electrical capacity and resistivity of the specimens measured by impedance spectroscopy taking into account specimen dimensions.
Figures
One can note the following specific features of these VACs:
– the VACs are nonlinear near zero for the specimens with ITO electrodes;
– the difference between the measurement cycles in the VACs for the specimens with ITO electrodes decreases and VAC nonlinearity near U = 0 also decreases with an increase in annealing duration;
– VAC nonlinearity near U = 0 for the specimens with Cr electrodes is noticeably lower than that for the specimens with ITO electrodes.
The VACs of some specimens exhibit hysteresis loops attributable to relaxation processes. To study the relaxation processes we analyzed current vs time curves at a constant voltage for all the specimens. The results showed that for an absolute voltage value of above 5 V the decrease of current in time for all the specimens is within 2% of the maximum values. Furthermore for VAC measurements in the –5 to 5 V range, VAC nonlinearity significantly affects the electrical conductivity readings. At higher voltages the nonlinearity has a smaller effect on the electrical conductivity measurement results. Therefore when measuring the electrical conductivity we did not use the current readings taken in the –5 to 5 V range. The resistivities were calculated for each measurement cycle separately for the positive and negative VAC branches.
The asymmetrical pattern of the curves for the specimens with chromium electrodes shown in Figs
Impedance spectroscopy data are shown in the form of Nyquist hodograph diagrams in Fig.
Nyquist hodograph diagrams of impedance spectra for specimens with (a, c and e) Cr and (b, d and f) ITO electrodes as-annealed for (a and b) 2, (c and d) 20 and (e and f) 40 min.: (1) experimental curve and (2 and 3) calculation on the basis of equivalent circuits shown in Fig.
It can be seen from Fig.
Since reduction annealing does not cause lithium niobate transformation to a new phase with a higher dielectric permeability, the electrical capacity of the specimen cannot change significantly due to a change in the dielectric parameters.
However Fig.
– a depleted layer forming near the contact;
– change of charge of the electron states at the contact/specimen interface upon application of an AC bias during the measurements.
In the former case the capacities are connected in series and in the latter case they are parallel. For serial connection the resultant capacity Cres cannot exceed the capacity of the specimen Cspc at any contact barrier capacity Cbar:
Since the results suggest that Cres ≥ Cspc, one can state that the capacity of the specimen and the contact capacity are parallel. The experiments also suggest that the resultant capacity is as follows:
C res = Cspc + Cbar,
where Cspc = const increases in with an increase in annealing duration and carrier concentration, this being in agreement with the observed increase in the electrical conductivity of the specimens. We therefore approximated the experimental data with the equivalent circuit as shown in Fig.
Selected parameters of equivalent circuit components providing for the best fit with the experimental curves with normalization to the specimen dimensions are shown in the form of specific electrical resistivity (the R and RVAC elements of the equivalent electric circuit in Fig.
The data shown in Fig.
The growth of the fractal capacity with an increase in annealing duration (see Fig.
Reduction vacuum annealing of lithium niobate at 1050 °C reduces the electrical resistivity of the material, however the dependence on annealing duration is nonmonotonic: crystal exposure to an oxygen-free atmosphere for 40 min causes a drop in the electrical resistivity to 5 · 108 Ohm · cm. The measurement results depend significantly on the electrode material, especially at low voltages.
Chromium electrodes form close-to-Ohmic contacts to reduced lithium niobate crystals but for short annealing duration in an oxygen-free atmosphere (20 min or less) the VACs are nonlinear close to zero voltage. The VACs for ITO electrodes contacting with lithium niobate have a clearly manifested nonlinear pattern with a reduction in the nonlinearity for long exposure (40 min) but without complete nonlinearity elimination.
We showed that with an increase in annealing duration the capacity of the specimens with both chromium and ITO electrodes increases. Our hypothesis is that this phenomenon is attributed to charge accumulation at electron states at the specimen / contact material interface. We suggested and calculated an equivalent circuit in which the contact capacity is represented as a fractal capacitor.
The study was conducted with financial support from the Russian Research Foundation (Grant No. 21-19-00872, https://rscf.ru/project/21-19-00872/) for specimen preparation and reduced lithium niobate electrophysical measurements.
The Authors are grateful to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for support within State Assignment (Fundamental Research Project No. 0718-2020-0031 “New Ferroelectric Composite Materials on the Basis of Oxide Ferroelectrics with Ordered Domain Structure: Production and Properties”).
Impedance spectroscopic studies were carried out on equipment of the Collective Use Center “Materials Science and Metallurgy” of the MISiS National Research and Technology University with financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (No. 075-15-2021-696).