Probing disorder in high-pressure cubic tin (IV) oxide: a combined X-ray diffraction and absorption study

The transparent conducting oxide, SnO₂, is a promising optoelectronic material with predicted tailorable properties via pressure-mediated band gap opening. While such electronic properties are typically modeled assuming perfect crystallinity, disordering of the O sublattice under pressure is qualitatively known. Here a quantitative approach is thus employed, combining extended X-ray absorption fine-structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy with X-ray diffraction, to probe the extent of Sn-O bond anharmonicities in the high-pressure cubic (Pa\bar{3}) SnO₂ - formed as a single phase and annealed by CO₂ laser heating to 2648 ± 41 K at 44.5 GPa. This combinational study reveals and quantifies a large degree of disordering in the O sublattice, while the Sn lattice remains ordered. Moreover, this study describes implementation of direct laser heating of non-metallic samples by CO₂ laser alongside EXAFS, and the high quality of data which may be achieved at high pressures in a diamond anvil cell when appropriate thermal annealing is applied.