Effect of fluorine doping on the structural, optical, and electrical properties of spray deposited Sb2O3 thin films

In this article, novel samples of un-doped and fluorine-doped Sb2O3 (FAO) thin films have been synthesized utilizing the spray pyrolysis procedure. X-ray diffraction instrument has been used to examine the crystallinity nature of undoped-Sb2O3 and F-doped Sb2O3 films. It depicts that these novel films have the polycrystalline orthorhombic phase. The investigation of microstructural parameters of sprayed undoped and fluorine-doped Sb2O3 films reveals that as the F-concentration increases, the crystallite size, D, decreases from 48.46 nm to 31.91 nm, while the microstrain (epsilon s) and number of crystallites per unit surface area (NC) increase. The optical results reveal that increasing the F-doping concentration from 0.0 wt% to 7.5 wt%. reduces the optical band-gap energy values (Eg) of the spray-deposited FAO films from 3.622 to 3.42 eV, while Urbach energy values (Eu) increases from 0.214 eV to 0.272 eV. Optical and electrical conductivities FAO films are also enhanced by increasing the F-doping concentration. Nonlinear optical parameters of these films are also got better by increasing the F-content from 0.0 wt% to 7.5 wt%. Meanwhile, the sheet resistance of FAO films decreases as the F-content increases, and Figure of merit of these films also improves. The present findings indicate that these innovative transparent conducting F-doped Sb2O3 films can be used in many optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications.