Influence of the Defect Stability on n-Type Conductivity in Electron-Doped α- and β-Co(OH)

Electronic doping of transition-metal oxides (TMOs) is typically accomplished through the synthesis of nonstoichiometric oxide compositions and the subsequent ionization of intrinsic lattice defects. As a result, ambipolar doping of wide-band-gap TMOs is difficult to achieve because the formation energies and stabilities of vacancy and interstitial defects vary widely as a function of the oxide composition and crystal structure. The facile formation of lattice defects for one carrier type is frequently paired with the high-energy and unstable generation of defects required for the opposite carrier polarity. Previous work from our group showed that the brucite (β-phase) layered metal hydroxides of Co and Ni, intrinsically p-type materials in their anhydrous three-dimensional forms, could be n-doped using a strong chemical reductant. In this work, we extend the electron-doping study to the α polymorph of Co(OH)