New approach to SnO2-based transparent conducting oxides incorporating synergistic effects of Au nano particles and microwave irradiation

Abstract

Recently, transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have attracted increasing attention in the development of electronic devices and energy harvesting applications. Standard materials used as TCOs are Sn-doped indium oxide (ITO) and F-doped tin oxide (FTO), which are ternary systems and require a doping process. Here, we introduce the synergistic effect of using microwave (MW) irradiation and Au nanoparticles (NPs) together on tin dioxide (SnO2) thin films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD), which have a binary system and do not need any additional doping process. For comparison to as-deposited SnO2 thin films, we prepared MW-irradiated SnO2 thin films with and without Au NP decoration. SnO2 thin films with Au NPs added during MW irradiation have carrier concentration, Hall mobility, and resistivity of 1.45 × 1022 cm−3, 5.4 cm2/Vs, and 7.93 × 10−5 Ω cm, respectively. Compared with as-deposited SnO2 thin films, these electrical properties are significantly enhanced, and plasmonic effects also occurred due to the presence of Au NPs. The enhanced properties are mainly attributed to generation of oxygen vacancies in SnO2 thin films. Our results demonstrate the potential of using SnO2 thin films as binary system TCOs, and point to the synergistic effects of using MW and Au NPs together.