Abstract
Aluminum-doped tin oxide (SnO:Al) thin films were produced by an ultrasonic spray pyrolysis method. The effect of aluminum doping on structural, optical, and electrical properties of tin oxide thin films synthesized at 420 C was investigated. Al doping induced a change in the morphology of tin oxide films and yielded films with smaller grain size. SnO thin films undergo a structural reordering and have a texture transition from (301) to (101), and then to (002) preferred cristallographic orientation upon Al doping. The lattice parameters (a and c) decreases with Al doping, following in a first approximation Vegard’s law. The optical transmission does not change in the visible region with an average transmittance value of 72–81%. Conversely, in the near infrared (NIR) region, the plasmon frequency shifts towards the IR region upon increasing Al concentration in the grown films. Nominally undoped SnO have a conductivity of ∼1120 S/cm, which is at least two orders of magnitude larger than what is reported in literature. This higher conductivity is attributed to the Cl ions in the SnCl·5(HO) precursor, which would act as donor dopants. The introduction of Al into the SnO lattice showed a decrease of the electrical conductivity of SnO due to compensating hole generation. These findings will be useful for further studied tackling the tailoring of the properties of highly demanded fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) films.
Highlights
Research in tin oxide (SnO2 ) is gaining dramatic interest among the wide-band gap semiconductor community due to its unique photoelectric and outstanding electrical conduction properties.doping of SnO2 with metal ions has been used to tailor the properties of the base material, which in turn has resulted in an enhancement of the device performance [1,2,3,4]
The aluminum content in the prepared samples was estimated using an energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analyzer equipped with a FEG-SEM system and Electron Probe Micro-Analyzer (EPMA, Cameca SX50 system equipped with wavelength dispersive spectrometers)
We have presented a comprehensive study describing the change in structural, optical, and electrical properties of tin oxide thin films prepared by ultrasonic spray pyrolysis upon
Summary
Doping of SnO2 with metal ions has been used to tailor the properties of the base material, which in turn has resulted in an enhancement of the device performance [1,2,3,4]. Undoped and surface doped SnO2 thin films are very good candidates for semiconductor based gas sensing applications (Taguchi sensors) due to a naturally occurring high oxygen non-stoichiometry accommodated by the SnO2 lattice [5]. For this application, a variation of the electrical conductivity of a material as a function of the atmosphere is required.
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