Oxygen-vacancy and depth-dependent violet double-peak photoluminescence from ultrathin cuboid SnO2 nanocrystals

A double peak in the violet region between 360 and 400 nm is observed from the photoluminescence spectra acquired from cuboid SnO2 nanocrystals and the energy separation between the two subpeaks increases with nanocrystal size. The phenomenon arises from band edge recombination caused by different in-depth distributions of oxygen vacancies (OVs). Density functional theory calculations disclose that variations in the oxygen vacancies with depth introduce valence-band peak splitting leading to the observed splitting and shift of the double peak.