We report the conducting and transparent In doped ZnO films fabricated by a homemade chemical spray pyrolysis system (CSPT). The effect of In concentration on the structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties have been studied. These films are found to show (0 0 2) preferential growth at low indium concentrations. An increase in In concentration causes a decrease in crystalline quality of films as confirmed by X-ray diffraction technique which leads to the introduction of defects in ZnO. Indium doping also significantly increased the electron concentrations, making the films heavily 𝑛 type. However, the crystallinity and surface roughness of the films decreases with increase in indium doping content likely as a result of the formation of smaller grain size, which is clearly displayed in AFM images. Typical optical transmittance values in the order of (80%) were obtained for all films. The lowest resistivity value of 0.045 𝛺-m was obtained for film with 5% indium doping.

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC:H) thin films were prepared using pure silane (SiH₄) and ethane (C₂H₆), a novel carbon source, without hydrogen dilution using hot wire chemical vapour deposition (HW-CVD) method at low substrate temperature (200 °C) and at reasonably higher deposition rate (19.5 Å/s < 𝑟_d < 35.2 Å/s). Formation of a-SiC:H films has been confirmed from FTIR, Raman and XPS analysis. Influence of deposition pressure on compositional, structural, optical and electrical properties has been investigated. FTIR spectroscopy analysis revealed that there is decrease in C–H and Si–H bond densities while, Si–C bond density increases with increase in deposition pressure. Total hydrogen content drops from 22.6 to 14.4 at.% when deposition pressure is increased. Raman spectra show increase in structural disorder with increase in deposition pressure. It also confirms the formation of nearly stoichiometric a-SiC:H films. Bandgap calculated using both Tauc’s formulation and absorption at 10⁴ cm^-1 shows decreasing trend with increase in deposition pressure. Decrease in refractive index and increase in Urbach energy suggests increase in structural disorder and microvoid density in the films. Finally, it has been concluded that C₂H₆ can be used as an effective carbon source in HW-CVD method to prepare stoichiometric a-SiC:H films.