Development of Fluorine Doped Tin Oxide Thin Films on Glass as TCOs by Spray Pyrolysis Method for Novel Optoelectronic Applications

Abstract

TO family of TCOs is probably the most popular substrate for systems that need the electrical conductivity and transparency at the same time. Among them Fluorine doped Tin oxide (FTO) provides chemical stability, abrasion tolerance and resistant to high temperatures more than other materials. FTOs are mostly fabricated by CVD and such complex systems that raise many malicious issues of complexity, environment and high cost. Despite most sophisticated systems, the material can be easily fabricated in the form of thin films by low-cost methods including spray pyrolysis, solgel method etc. Low cost methods provide better and affordable solution with the comparable characterization results of deposited thin films. In present work, Fluorine doped tin oxide thin films (FTO) are developed on glass as TCO by a modified spray pyrolysis method and their opto-electronic properties are studied alongwith their structural morphology, crystalline nature and grain size. The modified approach in spraying showed excellent results as transparency value exceeds 90% with resistivity value of 1.8 x 10− 5 Ωcm for 500 nm thickness, evaluated by line analysis of AFM. The particle size calculated by Williamsons-Hall method complies with AFM analysis lies between 50–60 nm.