Polaronic interacceptor hopping transport in intrinsically doped nickel oxide

Abstract

The authors show here that electronic conduction in moderately to highly doped nickel oxide (NiO) occurs via interacceptor hopping of heavy, self-trapped charge carriers (polarons). These carriers remain localized around acceptors, and are transported by moving exclusively among those sites. This is in contrast to previous assumptions, namely that all NiO lattice sites take part in the electronic transport process (`free' small polaron hopping). Furthermore, disorder is demonstrated to play a vital role in the transport characteristics.