Photoconductivity of transparent perovskite semiconductor BaSnO3 and SrTiO3 epitaxial thin films

We measured the photoconductivity of transparent semiconductor BaSnO3 and compared it with that of SrTiO3. Epitaxial BaSnO3 and SrTiO3 films were grown on MgO substrates to exclude any contribution to photoconductivity from the substrate due to its large bandgap. In spite of the same perovskite structure and similar bandgap sizes (3.1–3.2 eV), the photoconductive behaviors of the two materials are quite different in terms of their magnitude and time dependence. The photoconductivity of BaSnO3 persists for many hours after removal from light exposure, whereas the photoconductivity of SrTiO3 shows little persistent conductivity. In addition, the photoconductivity of BaSnO3 increases to a value over 25 times higher than that of SrTiO3, after 3 h of illuminations. The spectral photoconductive responses of both BaSnO3 and SrTiO3 show their highest peaks below 400 nm, suggesting that the electron-hole pair generation is the main mechanism of the photoconductivity for the both materials. The large persistent photoconductivity of BaSnO3 seems related with deep level defects with relatively large barriers for charge trapping and detrapping.