Preparing thin films of tin oxide by chemical spraying and study their structural and optical properties

In this work, tin oxide Thin films have been deposited on glass slide substrates at different deposition temperatures (200, 250, and 300°C). The films were deposited via chemical spray from two different precursors. The first solution was just dissolving tin chloride in 150 ml of distilled water, while the second solution included 1.98 g of tin chloride with 30 ml of CH3COOL, and hydrochloric acid (HCl). The absorbance spectrums show peaks at 360 nm and 340 nm of the films prepared from the first and second solutions, respectively. The energy gap was also affected by precursor type, varying from 2 eV to 2.165 eV for the films prepared from the first solution, while it varied from 1.9 eV to 2.2 eV for the films prepared from the second solution. Scanning electron microscope of the films prepared from the first solution shows a clear variation in the grain dimensions with deposition temperature , where it decreased from 65 nm to 35 nm, which agrees with x-ray spectrums, where the calculated grain dimensions also decreased from 73 nm to 39 nm with deposition temperature. Scanning electron microscope of the films prepared from the second solution also shows a clear variation in the grain dimensions with deposition temperature , where it varied from 35nm to 40nm which agrees with the x-ray spectrums, where the calculated grain dimensions also varied from 32 to 39 nm with deposition temperature.