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The interest in plasmonic technologies surrounds many emergent optoelectronic applications, such as plasmon lasers, transistors, sensors and information storage. Although plasmonic materials for ultraviolet-visible and near-infrared wavelengths have been found, the mid-infrared range remains a challenge to address: few known systems can achieve subwavelength optical confinement with low loss in this range. With a combination of experiments and ab initio modelling, here we demonstrate an extreme peak of electron mobility in Dy-doped CdO that is achieved through accurate 'defect equilibrium engineering'. In so doing, we create a tunable plasmon host that satisfies the criteria for mid-infrared spectrum plasmonics, and overcomes the losses seen in conventional plasmonic materials. In particular, extrinsic doping pins the CdO Fermi level above the conduction band minimum and it increases the formation energy of native oxygen vacancies, thus reducing their populations by several orders of magnitude. The substitutional lattice strain induced by Dy doping is sufficiently small, allowing mobility values around 500 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) for carrier densities above 10(20) cm(-3). Our work shows that CdO:Dy is a model system for intrinsic and extrinsic manipulation of defects affecting electrical, optical and thermal properties, that oxide conductors are ideal candidates for plasmonic devices and that the defect engineering approach for property optimization is generally applicable to other conducting metal oxides.

Single crystal AlN provides a native substrate for Al-rich AlGaN that is needed for the development of efficient deep ultraviolet light emitting and laser diodes. An absorption band centered around 4.7 eV (∼265 nm) with an absorption coefficient above 1000 cm−1 is observed in these substrates. Based on density functional theory calculations, substitutional carbon on the nitrogen site introduces absorption at this energy. A series of single crystalline wafers were used to demonstrate that this absorption band linearly increased with carbon, strongly supporting the model that CN- is the predominant state for carbon in AlN.

Defect chemistry and transport in Fe-doped SrTiO 3 single crystal are studied to understand its resistance degradation mechanism. The temporal evolution of electric conductivity under a voltage stress was obtained computationally by solving the transport equations for ionic and electronic defects coupled with the defect reaction equilibrium equations. The computational results are compared to the corresponding experimental measurement under similar conditions. It is shown that the local electron and hole concentrations are controlled by the local electronic defect equilibria rather than by their quasi-steady state diffusional transport. It is the electric field-induced migration of oxygen vacancies and the subsequent instantaneous reestablishment of the local defect equilibria that lead to the resistance degradation. The resistance degradation behavior and the defect distributions under a long-term voltage stress are strongly influenced by the sample-annealing oxygen partial pressure, degrading electric field, and temperature. The present study contributes to the understanding of resistance degradation mechanism and provides guidance to improve the lifetime and reliability of wide band-gap semiconducting capacitors.