Polaronic transport in TiO2 thin films with increasing Nb content

Abstract

The temperature dependence of the charge transport in TiO2 films was investigated to establish the correlation between the Nb content and electrical properties. It was identified that temperature-dependent conductivity of the films is dominated by a phonon-assisted small polaron hopping model in the non-adiabatic regime. Applying the polaron hopping models of Mott, Schnakenberg and Emin to describe the observed behavior, temperature-dependent conductivity data of the films were analyzed. A detailed analysis in terms of small polaron hopping parameters in the investigated temperature regime was used to correlate electrical properties with the percentage of Nb.