• The relationship between the doping levels and some physical properties of SnO2:F thin ﬁlms spray-deposited on optical glass

• # Fulltext

https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/pram/079/01/0137-0150

• # Keywords

SnO2:F; optoelectronic; spray pyrolysis; thin ﬁlms.

• # Abstract

The relationship between the ﬂuorine doping level and the electrical, structural and optical properties of the SnO2:F ﬁlms are investigated using the Hall effect measurement set-up in van der Pauw conﬁguration, the XRD patterns, UV–vis spectrophotometry and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The X-ray diffraction patterns taken at room temperature show that the ﬁlms are polycrystalline. The preferred directions of crystal growth in the diffractogram of SnO2:F (FTO) ﬁlms correspond to the reﬂections from the (1 1 0), (2 0 0), (2 1 1) and (3 0 1) planes. Thin ﬁlm thickness and the grain size vary from 280 to 1545 nm and from 17.45 to 33.22 nm, respectively. AFM study reveals the surface of FTO to be made of nanocrystalline particles. The electrical study reveals that the ﬁlms are degenerate and exhibit n-type electrical conductivity. The FTO ﬁlms have a minimum resistivity of $5.29 × 10^{−4} \Omega$·cm, carrier density of $0.09 × 10^{20}$ cm-3 and mobility of 377.02 cm2/V·s. The sprayed FTO ﬁlm has the minimum sheet resistance of 5.69 𝛺 /cm2 and the highest ﬁgure-of-merit of $204 × 10^{−4} \Omega^{−1}$ at 700 nm. The resistivity attained for the doped ﬁlm in this study is lower than the values reported for 20 wt.% ﬂuorine-doped tin oxide ﬁlms prepared from the aqueous solution of SnCl2·2H2O precursor. The highest visible transmittance (700 nm) of the deposited ﬁlms is 91.8% for 25 wt.% ﬂuorine-doped tin oxide ﬁlms. The obtained results reveal that the structures and properties of the ﬁlms are greatly affected by doping levels. These ﬁlms are useful as conducting layers in electrochromic and photovoltaic devices.

• # Author Affiliations

1. K.K. Education Faculty, Department of Physics, Ataturk University, Erzurum 25240, Turkey

• # Pramana – Journal of Physics

Volume 96, 2022
All articles
Continuous Article Publishing mode

• # Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019