Doubly doped tin oxide films from cost effective spray technique using perfume atomiser

An inexpensive and simplified spray technique using perfume atomiser is employed for the fabrication of doubly doped antimony+fluorine tin oxide films from aqueous solutions of SnCl₂ precursor having different molar concentrations. The preferred orientation is along the (110) plane. The degree of preferred orientation, texture coefficient and crystallinity of the films were found to increase with the increase in precursor concentration. The SEM images show that the films are homogeneous and uniform. The minimum sheet resistance obtained is 4·98 Ω/sq for concentration 0·8M. This may be the least value obtained for fluorine or antimony doped tin oxide film prepared from aqueous solution of SnCl₂ precursor using spray pyrolysis technique. Wide optical band gap (3·51 eV), good visible transmittance (81%), considerable figure of merit (4·6×10⁻³ Ω⁻¹) and high infrared reflectivity (77–95%) make these doubly doped films desirable candidates for low cost solar cell materials.