Revealing the Electronic Structure and Optical Properties of CuFeO2 as a p-Type Oxide Semiconductor

Delafossite CuFeO2 is a p-type oxide semiconductor with a band gap of ∼1.5 eV, which has attracted great interests for applications in solar energy harvesting and oxide electronics. However, there are still some discrepancies in the literature regarding its fundamental electronic structure and transport properties. In this paper, we use a synergistic combination of resonant photoemission spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy to directly study the electronic structure of well-defined CuFeO2 epitaxial thin films. Our detailed study reveals that CuFeO2 has an indirect and d-d forbidden band gap of 1.5 eV. The top of the valence band (VB) of CuFeO2 mainly consists of occupied Fe 3d sta…