Green emission of indium oxide: Via hydrogen treatment

Abstract

In this work, we prepared hydrogen treated indium oxide (H2-In2O3) and investigated the effect of hydrogen treatment on the optical and photoluminescence properties of In2O3. Hydrogen treatment has no influence on the crystal structure, but alters the intrinsic electronic structure and optical properties via introducing hydrogen induced defects such as shallow donor states (near the conduction band) and singly ionized oxygen vacancies in H2-In2O3. Both air-In2O3 (air calcinated) and H2-In2O3 show intense blue emission under UV excitation (280 nm). However, hydrogen treated In2O3 exhibited an additional green emission, which is absent in air-In2O3. This green emission arises from the passivation of singly ionized oxygen vacancies by hydrogen treatment. Hydrogen treatment could be a promising strategy to tune the electronic and optical properties of In2O3.