Ternary nitrides - a disorder tunable material

Susan Schorr^1,2

¹Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Abteilung Struktur und Dynamik von Energiematerialien

²Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für geologische Wissenschaften

Ternary nitrides ZnMIVN2 (MIV= Ge,Sn) are being considered as promising candidates for photovoltaic absorber materials, containing uniquely elements of low toxicity and low resource criticality [1]. It has been postulated based on DFT calculations that these compounds possess a mechanism for bandgap tuning through cation disorder [2].
We are using diffraction techniques to investigate the crystal structure and structural disorder of Zn1+xGe1-x(N1-xOx)2 (x<0.35) which allows us to distinguish between intrinsic and compositional cation disorder. Finally the relationship between cation disorder and the bandgap energy is discussed.

[1] Narang, et al., Adv. Mater. 26 (2014) 1235–1241.

[2] Skachkov, et al., Phys. Rev. B. 94 (2016) 205201.

Susan Schorr has a diploma in crystallography and a PhD in physics. She is the head of the Department Structure and Dynamics of Energy Materials at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin and teaches at the Freie Universität Berlin.