Abstract
Antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) thin films are deposited on corning glass substrate using the spray pyrolysis technique. The experimental parameters such as distance between the substrate and source (10-30 cm), substrate temperature (350-450°C) and atmospheres (Nitrogen and Forming gas) are varied to study their effect on the properties of ATO thin films. The ATO thin film annealed at 425°C exhibits the lowest electrical resistivity of 2.23×10-2 Ω-cm. Besides, the film annealed in the nitrogen atmosphere showed a less resistivity value of 9.06×10-3 (Ω-cm) than the forming gas atmosphere. The film doped with 3 at% of Sb revealed the highest figure of merit value of 11.45x10-2 Ω-1. The preferential orientation is observed at the (200) diffraction plane in all the cases from the structural studies. Furthermore, the intensity of the diffraction planes decreases as the temperature increases. The average transmittance of 75% is obtained for ATO thin films.
Highlights
Transparent conductive oxide (TCO) materials have conductive properties close to metals and allow the electromagnetic spectrum of visible light[1]
The Antimony doped tin oxide (ATO) thin films are considered an alternative to ITO and fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) due to their excellent calorific properties[5,17,18]
ATO thin films are deposited by spray pyrolysis to use as transparent electrodes[19]
Summary
Transparent conductive oxide (TCO) materials have conductive properties close to metals and allow the electromagnetic spectrum of visible light[1]. TCO material possesses band gap ≥ 3 eV and resistivity[] Ω-cm 6.TCO could transmit a limited light close to electrical conductivity, which is relatively low compared to metals such as silver or gold[7] The properties of these materials are contradictory in the band structure view: a transparent material is an insulator that possesses filled valence and empty conduction bands[8], whereas metallic conductivity appears when the Fermi level lies within a band with a large density of states to provide high carrier concentration[9]. ATO thin films are deposited by spray pyrolysis to use as transparent electrodes[19] The experimental parameters such as temperature, dopant concentration, deposition distance, and post-treatment at different atmospheres are varied to study their effect on the ATO thin films’ structural, electrical, and optical properties[20,21]. The ATO thin films demonstrated excellent electrical properties (Resistivity ≤ 10-3 Ω-cm, carrier concentration> 1020 cm – 3) and high visible transparency (> 75%) which revealed their suitability in optoelectronic devices[22,23,24,25]
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