Nanowerk  May 7, 2021 Tin-containing oxide semiconductors are cheaper than most semiconductor materials, but their photofunctional applications are constrained by a wide optical band gap. Researchers in Japan doped hydride ions into the tin-containing semiconductor material successfully reducing the band gap from 4 eV to 2 eV, due to the chemical reduction of the tin component that accompanied the hydride ion doping. They verified tin reduction reaction in the semiconductor material through physicochemical measurements. The reduction leads to the generation of a “tin lone electron pair,” whose different electronic states notably contribute to the visible light absorption of the material. […]