Study of conduction mechanisms of InSeSb nano-chalcogenide alloys

Abstract

The electrical conduction mechanisms for bulk samples of In0.1Se0.9-xSbx (x= 0, 0.04, 0.08 and 0.12) nano-chalcogenide system, synthesized by the melt-quenching technique are investigated through current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. For the detailed study of conduction mechanism pellets of bulk samples are prepared. A thorough examination of electrical conductivity is done in the temperature range of 295-318 K and 0-50 V voltage range. From I-V measurements it is observed that samples are showing ohmic nature at lower field and non-ohmic nature at relatively higher field values. The temperature dependence of DC conductivity is analyzed using the Arrhenius relationship which is found to increase with Sb content. The value of activation energy and pre-exponential factor are calculated, which revealed that the conduction is due to the hopping of charge carriers among the localized states. Different parameters of Mott’s variable range hopping such as degree of disorder T0, density of localized states N(EF), hopping distance (Rhop), and hopping energy (W) are calculated. For the high field conduction process Poole-Frenkel, and Schottky processes are studied.