Sb-doping effects on optical and electrical parameters of SnO2 films

Undoped and Sb-doped SnO2 films similar to 100 nm thick have been deposited by electron beam evaporation from bulk samples prepared using sintering te chnique. Either undoped or Sb-doped SnO2 films are nearly amorphous, resist ive and transparent. With increasing Sb content, the resistivity slightly d ecreases and then increases with further addition of Sb. which acts as dono r and/or acceptor impurity atom in the SnO2 lattice, respectively. Besides, the doping of Sb inside the SnO2 lattice was associated with the increase in the film transmission at solar maximum wavelength and the width of optic al band gap; which were interpreted in terms of the interaction between the two oxidation states of antimony, Sb3+ and Sb5+ and the increase of atomic bond energy, respectively. Moreover, the addition of Sb to the SnO2 lattic e has proved to affect significantly on the refractive index, the extinctio n coefficient, concentration of free carriers, dielectric constant, electri c carrier susceptibility and Mott's parameters, which have been explained a nd correlated to the film microstructure change. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.