There is a lack of practical low-temperature p-type oxide amorphous semiconductors for electronics to balance the widespread availability of n-type oxide semiconductors [1]. Glassy TeO₂ is already well known for its large non-linear optical response [2]. Amorphous TeO₂, closely related to its β polytype, can be made by pulsed laser deposition [3], has a high p-type mobility and a bandgap of ~3.5 eV [4,5]. While experimentally undoped TeO₂ is found to be weakly p-type, high conductivity has yet to be seen [5]. We show by ab-initio molecular dynamics that amorphous TeO₂ makes an ordered random network with very few like-atom bonds and that it can be degenerately doped p-type by substitutional As_Te sites and would not be compensated by intrinsic defects [6]. Additionally, substitutional N_O sites form moderately shallow sites unlike in ZnO. Thus, TeO₂ should make the first useful amorphous p-type semiconductor.

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[2] M B Yahia et al, J Phys Chem B Lets 112 10777 (2008)

[3] J Shi et al, App Phys Lett 122 101901 (2023)

[4] S Guo, et al, Nanoscale 10 8397 (2018)

[5] A Zavabeti et al, Nature Electronics 4 277 (2021)

[6] J Robertson, S J Clark, Phys Rev B 83 075205 (2011)