Antimony-Doped Tin Oxide Thin Films Grown by Home Made Spray Pyrolysis Technique

Transparent conducting antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) films have been deposited on glass substrates by home made spray pyrolysis technique. The structural, electrical and optical properties of the ATO films have been investigated as a function of Sb-doping level and annealing temperature. The optimum target composition for high conductivity and low resistivity was found to be 20 wt. {\%} SnSb$_{2}+$90 wt. ATO. Under optimized deposition conditions of 450$^{o}$C annealing temperature, electrical resistivity of 5.2\texttimes 10$^{-4} \quad \Omega $-cm, sheet resistance of 16.4 $\Omega $/sq, average optical transmittance of 86{\%} in the visible range, and average optical band-gap of 3.34eV were obtained. The film deposited at lower annealing temperature shows a relatively rough, loosely bound slightly porous surface morphology while the film deposited at higher annealing temperature shows uniformly distributed grains of greater size. Keywords: Annealing, Doping, Homemade spray pyrolysis, Tin oxide, Resistivity