Tailoring of the Solid State Properties of Al–Nb Mixed Oxides: A Photoelectrochemical Study

Al–Nb containing mixed oxides were grown by anodizing sputter-deposited Al–Nb alloys of different compositions. A photoelectrochemical investigation was carried out in order to estimate the band gap, flat band potential, and conductivity type of these oxides as a function of their composition. The dependence of the band gap on the composition of mixed sp–d metal oxides has been rationalized by using a semiempirical correlation between the difference of electronegativity and band gap of oxides proposed in the literature some years ago and recently tested for regular d–d metal mixed oxides. The band gap increase observed as a function of Al content into the oxides seems mainly depending on the monotonic shift of the conduction band mobility edge, E CBM, derived from 5d orbitals of Nb5+ in the presence of an almost constant energy location of the valence band mobility edge, E VBM.