Effect of Thermal Annealing on Surface Plasmon Resonance in Tin Oxide Thin Films

In this work, thin films of tin oxide were synthesized by vaporizing tin oxide powder targets using a continuous CO2 laser of specific power and then deposition of the resulting vapor on glass substrates. Two films were synthesized, one of which was annealed at 550 degrees C for 2 h. The effect of thermal annealing on the structural and optical properties of the prepared films was investigated. The obtained results showed that thermal annealing causes changes in crystallite size related to the orientations of the crystal planes. Moreover, the appearance of the plasmon resonance peak of tin oxide particles was observed in the absorption spectrum of the as-deposited sample at 305.88 nm. This peak becomes broader and moves to 336.87 nm in the spectrum of the annealed sample.