Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are exceptional materials that possess the unique combination of nearly metallic conductivity and optical transparency over the visible portion of the spectrum. With such features, TCOs have become critical components of many present and emerging technologies. Today these materials are already ubiquitous, appearing in windows, flat-panel displays, portable electronics, solar cells, solid-state light-emitters, and transistors. Thanks to the ever-growing list of applications that rely on TCOs, the recent surge of interest in these materials has focused on understanding the fundamental properties and doping opportunities in a variety of traditional as well as promising new TCOs.

Using state-of-the-art first-principles calculations, we address several important issues in a number of technologically relevant TCOs. First, the origins of unintentional conductivity. Many TCOs exhibit high levels of n-type conductivity, even when not intentionally doped. For SnO ₂, In₂O₃ and Ga₂O₃, we demonstrate that this is not due to oxygen vacancies, as is commonly assumed, but must be attributed to unintentional incorporation of impurities, with hydrogen being a prime candidate. Second, the push for higher doping levels. We suggest several donor impurities as candidate dopants with high solubility. We also investigate limitations on doping due to the formation or incorporation of compensating centers. Among intrinsic defects, cation vacancies are the most likely candidates; we also study impurities that act as acceptors. In the case of SnO₂, group-V impurities are intriguing since they can act either as donors on the Sn site or acceptors on the O site. Third, the prospects for p-type doping. Here we find that none of the investigated acceptors will lead to effective hole doping. We demonstrate that the reason for this behavior is the tendency for strong localization of holes in the oxygen-derived valence bands, and relate this to the issue of polaron formation.

Finally, we apply our acquired expertise to the issue of reducing the absorption edge of another wide-band-gap semiconducting oxide, TiO₂, which is widely used for photocatalysis. Our conclusions resolve long-standing questions on the properties of N-doped titania, suggesting another application of acceptor doping in TCO materials.