Structural and electrical properties of copper doped In2O3 nanostructures prepared by citrate gel processes

Copper doped indium oxide (In2-xCuxO3) nanostructures were prepared by a simple citrate gel process using indium nitrate and copper nitrate as precursors. The influence of the dopant concentration (x = 0, 0.03, 0.05 and 0.07) on the structural, morphological and the electrical properties of indium oxide was studied. The crystallite size and the surface roughness (root mean square roughness and the mean roughness) of the prepared samples increased as a function of the dopant concentration. However, the copper (Cu) concentration did not affect the basic host crystal structure. The prepared samples showed an n-type semiconducting behavior and a variation in the electrical parameters, which might be due to the confinement of the electronic states of the dopants to small volumes (less than 100 nm). Implication of the degenerate electron gas model to the experimental electrical data revealed the role of the different scattering centers in conduction electron scattering.