Investigation of structural, optical and electrical properties of Sr2SnO4, Sr1.99Eu0.01SnO4 and Sr2Sn0.99Eu0.01O4 Ruddlesden Popper oxide

Structural, electrical and optical properties of samples have been reported in this paper. The samples with compositions Sr2SnO4, Sr1.99Eu0.01SnO4 and Sr2Sn0.99Eu0.01O4 are prepared by solid state ceramic route followed by calcination at temperature 1000 °C for 8 h. Rietveld refinement of powder x-ray diffraction (XRD) data showed tetragonal structure in all samples with space group (I4/mmm). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies indicate the presence of Sn in Sn4+ and Sn2+ state in both the samples. The electrical conductivity of the sample follows universal johnscher's law.''. Temperature dependent electrical conductivity shows Arrhenius type charge transport in samples Sr2SnO4, Sr1.99Eu0.01SnO4 and Sr2Sn0.99Eu0.01O4 with activation energy 0.16, 0.17, 0.16 eV respectively. Conduction in these sample occurs via electron hopping through the multivalent state of Sn, Conductivity spectra obtained at different temperature scaled by Ghosh Scaling perfectly follows time temperature superposition principle (TTSP). The presence of Eu is further probed by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy in which emission spectra of Eu3+ for both the samples show intense emission peak at 577, 595 and 612 nm assigned to transitions from 5D0 → 7FJ (J = 0, 1, 2, 3) levels of Eu3+. Higher the value of conductivity σ dc and integrated area of emission peak for Sr1.99Eu0.01SnO4 is making it more multifunctional than Sr2Sn0.99Eu0.01O4.