The morphological, optical and electrical properties of SnO2:F thin films prepared by spray pyrolysis

Combining the spray pyrolysis and the sol-gel techniques gives the possibility to produce Fluorine doped Tin oxide (SnO2:F) thin films. Transparent conducting SnO2:F thin films have been deposited on glass substrates by the spray pyrolysis technique. This technique for the fabrication of SnO2:F filmsby combining sol-gel process and the spray pyrolysis technique is presented in this paper. The Sol-gel precursors have been successfully prepared using SnCl2-5H(2)O and (Ac)F-3. The structural, electrical, and optical properties of these films were investigated. The high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and selected area diffraction (SAD) patterns of SnO2:F films show that the gel films lead to a tetragonal structure. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the films deposited at substrate temperature 530 degrees, the orientation of the films was predominantly [110]. In addition, the surface chemical components were also examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) showing the SnO2:F deposited with the atomic concentration ratios Sn/F 1.82:1. The minimum sheet resistance was 50 Omega and average transmission in the visible wavelength range of 300 to 800 nm was 87.25%. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.