A novel synthesis of tin oxide thin films by the sol-gel process for optoelectronic applications
- Department of Materials Science, School of Chemistry, Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamilnadu, Madurai-625021 (India)
- Department of Physics, Centre for Materials Science and Nanotechnology, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1126 Blindern, N-0318 Oslo (Norway)
- Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Allegaten 55, N-5007, Bergen (Norway)
A novel and simple chemical method based on sol-gel processing was proposed to deposit metastable orthorhombic tin oxide (SnOx) thin films on glass substrates at room temperature. The resultant samples are labeled according to the solvents used: ethanol (SnO-EtOH), isopropanol (SnO-IPA) and methanol (SnO-MeOH). The variations in the structural, morphological and optical properties of the thin films deposited using different solvents were characterized by X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, UV-vis spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) analysis. The XRD patterns confirm that all the films, irrespective of the solvents used for preparation, were polycrystalline in nature and contained a mixed phases of tin (II) oxide and tin (IV) oxide in a metastable orthorhombic crystal structure. FTIR spectra confirmed the presence of Sn=O and Sn-O in all of the samples. PL spectra showed a violet emission band centered at 380 nm (3.25 eV) for all of the solvents. The UV-vis spectra indicated a maximum absorption band shown at 332 nm and the highest average transmittance around 97% was observed for the SnO-IPA and SnO-MeOH thin film samples. The AFM results show variations in the grain size with solvent. The structural and optical properties of the SnO thin films indicate that this method of fabricating tin oxide is promising and that future work is warranted to analyze the electrical properties of the films in order to determine the viability of these films for various transparent conducting oxide applications.
- OSTI ID:
- 22454453
- Journal Information:
- AIP Advances, Vol. 5, Issue 2; Other Information: (c) 2015 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2158-3226
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ABSORPTION
ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ETHANOL
FOURIER TRANSFORMATION
GRAIN SIZE
INFRARED SPECTRA
METHANOL
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
ORTHORHOMBIC LATTICES
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
POLYCRYSTALS
PROPANOLS
RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY
SOL-GEL PROCESS
SOLVENTS
SYNTHESIS
THIN FILMS
TIN OXIDES
X-RAY DIFFRACTION