Gd and Tb doping effects on the physical properties of Nd2Sn2O7

In the current study, we report the light doping effects of the gadolinium and the terbium on the structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties of Nd2Sn2O7 pyrochlore ceramics. The pyrochlore which is prepared by the conventional solid state reaction technique is analyzed by means of scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analyzer, X-ray diffraction, ultraviolet- visible light spectrophotometry and temperature dependent current -voltage characteristics techniques. It is found that even though the doping content of both metals is low (2%), they significantly alter the physical properties of the pyrochlore. Particularly, it is observed that, these two doping agents increases the lattice parameter and strain and reduces the crystallite size and dislocation density. Optically, the effect of Gd doping on shrinking the energy band gap value of the Nd2Sn2O7 pyrochlore ceramic is more pronounced than that of Tb. On the other hand, the electrical investigations have shown that while the Gd make the pyrochlore exhibit p–type conductivity through forming shallow acceptor levels, the Tb forces n-type conductivity by forming deep donor levels below the conduction band edge. Such acceptor and donor impurity levels increases the electrical conductivity of the Nd2Sn2O7 pyrochlore ceramics by 390 and 58 times, respectively.