Electronic Conduction Of The Sn(1-x)Cu(x/3)Sb(2x/3)O(2) (x# < 1/2) Rutile Type Structures

The influence of the substituent quantity and the effect of CuO addition to the SnO(2) based solid solutions belonging to the SnO(2) - CuSb(2)O(6) pseudobinary system and their electrical behaviour have been approached. The electrical properties were studied by electrical resistivity measurements in the 77 - 1100 K temperature range and by Seebeck coefficient measurements at the room temperature. All the studied samples present a high electrical n type conductivity over the whole investigated temperature range with activation energy within 0.08 - 0.78 eV interval. A decrease of the electrical conductivity with the increase of substituents quantity up to 500 K was observed. According to the morphology of the obtained samples, a distinctive 1inear dependence of 1 n k against 1000/T was obtained: 1) the dense SnO(2) ss ceramics show a linear variation suggesting a direct dependence of electron mobility on temperature; 2) for the porous SnO(2) ss ceramics, a visible modification of the slope takes place in the temperature range: 300 - 700 K. This was assigned to a change of the mechanism of the charge carrier motion due to the presence of the pores at the surface of the samples. The measured values for the Seebeck coefficient indicate that the main charge carriers are, for all studied samples, the electrons.