Transparent conductive oxide (TCO) glass is one of most important components in dyesensitized solar cell (DSSC) device. In addition to its high electrical conductivity, transparency is another important requirement that must be achieved in fabricating TCO. One TCO film is fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO), which can be considered as the most promising substitution for indium-doped tin oxide (ITO), since the latter is very expensive. However, the fabrication techniques for TCO film need to be carefully selected; the synthesis parameters must be properly optimized to provide the desired properties. In this work, FTO glass has been fabricated by the ultrasonic spray pyrolisis technique with different precursors, i.e. tin (II) chloride dihydrate (SnCl 2 .2H 2 O) and anhydrous tin (IV) chloride (SnCl 4 ), as well as different solvents, i.e. ethanol and methanol. For both conditions, ammonium fluoride (NH 4 F) was used as the doping compound. The resulting thin films were characterized by use of a scanning electron microscope (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy and a four-point probe test. The results of the investigation show that the highest transmittance of 88.3% and the lowest electrical resistivity of 8.44×10 -5 Ω.cm were obtained with the FTO glass processed with 20 minutes of spray pyrolysis deposition and 300 o C substrate heating, using SnCl 4 as the precursor and methanol as the solvent. It can be concluded that TCO fabrication with tin chloride precursors and ammonium fluoride doping using ultrasonic spray pyrolisis can be considered as a simple and low cost method, as well as a breakthrough in manufacturing conductive and transparent glass.

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Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) is one of the conductive glasses that have strategic functions in various important applications, including dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). In the current work, the effects of deposition time (5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 minutes) upon the fabrication process of FTO thin film using spray pyrolysis technique with modified ultrasonic nebulizer has been studied in regard to its microstructural, optical, crystallinity, and resistivity characteristics. The variation was also performed by comparing the pure tin chloride precursor and the solution that was doped with fluor (F) at 2 wt% in order to see the doping effect on the properties of thin film. The thin films were characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, and digital multimeter. On the basis of current investigation, it has been found that the best FTO was obtained through the pyrolysis technique of 20-minute deposition time, providing optical transmittance of 74%, a band gap energy (E g ) of 3.85 eV and sheet resistance (R s ) of 7.99 Ω/sq. The fabricated FTO in the present work is promising for further development as conducting glass for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC).

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