Doping limits, band gaps, work functions and energy band alignments of undoped and donor-doped transparent conducting oxides ZnO, In2O3, and SnO2 as accessed by X-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS/UPS) are summarized and compared. The presented collection provides an extensive data set of technologically relevant electronic properties of photovoltaic transparent electrode materials and illustrates how these relate to the underlying defect chemistry, the dependence of surface dipoles on crystallographic orientation and/or surface termination, and Fermi level pinning.

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The energy band alignment at interfaces between different materials is a key factor, which determines the function of electronic devices. While the energy band alignment of conventional semiconductors is quite well understood, systematic experimental studies on oxides are still missing. This work presents an extensive study on the intrinsic energy band alignment of a wide range of functional oxides using photoelectron spectroscopy with in‐situ sample preparation. The studied materials have particular technological importance in diverse fields as solar cells, piezotronics, multiferroics, photo‐electrochemistry and oxide electronics. Particular efforts have been made to verify the validity of transitivity, in order to confirm the intrinsic nature of the obtained band alignment and to understand the underlying principles. Valence band offsets up to 1.6 eV are observed. The large variation of valence band maximum energy can be explained by the different orbital contributions to the density of states in the valence band. The framework provided by this work enables the general understanding and prediction of energy band alignment at oxide interfaces, and furthermore the tailoring of energy level matching for charge transfer in functional oxides. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

In this investigation, we studied electronic properties of the CdS∕Zn1−xMgxO (x=0,0.15) interface using photoelectron spectroscopy. ZnO and (Zn,Mg)O films were deposited by magnetron sputtering from ceramic targets on thermally evaporated CdS. Valence-band offsets of ΔEV=1.2±0.1eV are determined for both interfaces. The gap difference of 0.3eV between ZnO and Zn0.85Mg0.15O is therefore fully accommodated by a different conduction-band energy, which should be well suited for modulation doping in ZnO∕(Zn,Mg)O heterostructures.