Highly Electron-Doped TaON Single-Crystal Growth by a High-Pressure Flux Method

Transition-metal oxynitrides have a variety of functions such as visible light-responsive catalysts and dielectric materials, but acquiring single crystals necessary to understand inherent properties is difficult and is limited to relatively small sizes (<10 μm) because they easily decompose at high temperatures. Here, we have succeeded in growing platelet single crystals of TaON with a typical size of 50 × 100 × 10 μm³ under a high pressure and high temperature (6 GPa and 1400 °C) using a LiCl flux. Such a harsh condition, in contrast to powder samples synthesized under mild conditions, resulted in the introduction of a large amount of oxygen vacancies (x = 0.06 in TaO_1-N) into the crystal, providing a metallic behavior with a large anisotropy of ρ_c/ρ_ab ∼ 10³. Low-temperature oxygen annealing allows for a single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation to obtain fully oxidized TaON (yellow) crystals. Needle-like crystals can be obtained when NH₄Cl is used as a flux. Furthermore, black Hf₂ON₂ single crystals are also grown, suggesting that the high-pressure flux method is widely applicable to other transition-metal oxynitrides, with extensive carrier control.