Studies on structural and electrical properties of spray deposited SnO2:F thin films as a function of film thickness

An alternative fluorine precursor for the synthesis of SnO2:F by spray pyrolysis

“…Several scattering mechanisms might influence the mobility of the carriers [6][7][8]. Among them, the key mechanisms are scattering due to neutral impurities, due to ionized impurities, due to phonon and…”

“…However, in order to further improve the conductivity, tin oxide is generally doped, either with Sb or F [5][6][7] as substitutes for tin and oxygen respectively. Due to differences in the valence state and in hybrid orbital configuration in both cases a free electron is released if one of these two doping atoms is…”

“…However, F is normally preferred to Sb because, at high doping concentration, a reduction in the mobility and lower transparency has been observed for Sb doped films. [6][7][8]. For these reasons FTO is a widely used TCO in both CdTe and amorphous silicon based solar cells [1].…”

“…Thus an alternative fluorine source is needed. For this reason either HF or NH 4 F have been often reported as F source in spray pyrolysis and other CVD techniques [6,7,16]. However both of them are classified as toxic.…”

Influence of fluorine doping on the microstructure, optical and electrical properties of SnO2 nanoparticles

“…Thus, it is essential to develop ways for controlling their structure and surface properties. There are several techniques that have been used to prepare FTO nanoparticles and thin films such as chemical vapor deposition [17], hydrothermal [18], solvothermal [19], spray pyrolysis [20] sol-gel [21] and rf-magnetron sputtering [10]. Among these techniques, the sol-gel method attracts most of the attention to the preparation of oxide nanoparticles, with a high quality, because of its several advantages, such as excellent homogeneity, ease of controlling the doping level, ability to coat large areas, complex shapes, and low-cost processing [22].…”