Photo-Induced Conductivity of Heterojunction GaAs/Rare-Earth Doped SnO2

Rare-earth doped (Eu3+ or Ce3+) thin layers of tin dioxide (SnO2) are deposited by the sol-gel-dip-coating technique, along with gallium arsenide (GaAs) films, deposited by the resistive evaporation technique. The as-built heterojunction has potential application in optoelectronic devices, because it may combine the emission from the rare-earth-doped transparent oxide, with a high mobility semiconductor. Trivalent rare-earth-doped SnO2 presents very efficient emission in a wide wavelength range, including red (in the case of Eu3+) or blue (Ce3+). The advantage of this structure is the possibility of separation of the rare-earth emission centers, from the electron scattering, leading to an indicated combination for electroluminescence. Electrical characterization of the heterojunction SnO2:Eu/GaAs shows a significant conductivity increase when compared to the conductivity of the individual films. Monochromatic light excitation shows up the role of the most external layer, which may act as a shield (top GaAs), or an ultraviolet light absorber sink (top RE-doped SnO2). The observed improvement on the electrical transport properties is probably related to the formation of short conduction channels in the semiconductors junction with two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) behavior, which are evaluated by excitation with distinct monochromatic light sources, where the samples are deposited by varying the order of layer deposition.