The electron mobility of SnO2 from first principles

The transparent semiconducting oxide SnO2 is a wide-band-gap semiconductor often used in its doped form in various optoelectronic devices. The experimentally measured electron mobility values in the literature vary widely depending on the growth conditions and doping concentrations. In this work, we investigate the dependence of the phonon-limited electron mobility on temperature and free electron concentration from first principles. We explore the contribution of the different phonon modes to electron scattering to understand how the band structure and phonon dispersion determine the fundamental limits of electron transport in SnO2. Band structures and electron-phonon coupling strengths are calculated from first principles with density functional theory and density functional perturbation theory respectively, with quasiparticle effects and quadrupole corrections applied to ensure accuracy. We compare our calculated mobility values with experimental results and discuss the implications for future applications of this material.