Intrinsic nature of visible-light absorption in amorphous semiconducting oxides

To enlighten microscopic origin of visible-light absorption in transparent amorphous semiconducting oxides, the intrinsic optical property of amorphous InGaZnO4 is investigated by considering dipole transitions within the quasiparticle band structure. In comparison with the crystalline InGaZnO4 with the optical gap of 3.6 eV, the amorphous InGaZnO4 has two distinct features developed in the band structure that contribute to significant visible-light absorption. First, the conduction bands are down-shifted by 0.55 eV mainly due to the undercoordinated In atoms, reducing the optical gap between extended states to 2.8 eV. Second, tail states formed by localized oxygen p orbitals are distributed over ∼0.5 eV near the valence edge, which give rise to substantial subgap absorption. The fundamental understanding on the optical property of amorphous semiconducting oxides based on underlying electronic structure will pave the way for resolving instability issues in recent display devices incorporating the semiconducting oxides.