BaZrO₃/MgO-templated epitaxy showing a conductivity increase of three orders of magnitude for the Ba_0.95La_0.05SnO₃ films on Al₂O₃ substrates, with very high transparency and X-band electromagnetic shielding

Transparent conductors with electromagnetic shielding capabilities (TC-EMS) are rare, despite their significant potential for creating new functionalities in energy and military applications. Here, we investigate the potential of La-doped BaSnO₃ (BLSO) for TC-EMS since its epitaxial film has been known to have low sheet resistance and high visible transmittance. However, films grown on industrially practical Al₂O₃ substrates exhibit a sheet resistance three orders of magnitude higher than that of reported films grown on perovskites. Here, this problem is addressed by templating a BaZrO₃/MgO bilayer on (0001)-oriented Al₂O₃ substrates to yield single-crystalline BLSO epitaxial films. The absence of grain boundaries in the epitaxial films minimizes the electron scattering. Due to the affirmative correlation between the conductivity and crystallinity, 5% La doping is optimal among the 5−20% La concentrations studied; these 480-nm-thick films have the highest crystallinity and the lowest sheet resistances of ~28 Ω ▯⁻¹; this value is similar to that of single-crystalline levels. Due to their very high transmittances (~82% in a range 400−1000 nm) and effective X-band electromagnetic shielding (~18.6 dB), the BLSO epitaxial films grown on Al₂O₃ have great potential to be used for inexpensive TC-EMS applications.