Effects of glycerin volume ratios and annealing temperature on the characteristics of nanocrystalline tin dioxide thin films

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics 2015-06, Vol.26 (6), p.3417-3426
• Main Authors: Kadhim, Imad H., Abu Hassan, H.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Materials Science; Optical and Electronic Materials
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-015-2851-4

Nanocrystalline (NC) tin dioxide thin films have been synthesized via sol–gel spin coating method. The sol solution produces thin films that suffer from cracking at room temperature and at different annealing temperatures. Hence, the determination of the smallest value of glycerin is necessary to solve the cracking problem. Glycerin was added to the sol solutions with different volume ratios (0:1, 1:12, 1:8) at low temperature to enhance film porosity and to eliminate cracks. Temperature affects on the characteristics of NC SnO 2 thin films, particularly particle size where the crystallization of SnO 2 thin films obtained after annealing at 400 °C is a NC tetragonal rutile structure. With the increase of annealing temperature the crystallinity has enhanced, the crystallite size increased, and it was observed that both of the intensity and a blue shift of the A 1g phonon peak increased at constant volume ratio of glycerin. Hence, these results indicated that (1:12) of glycerin volume ratio to sol solution volume ratio represents the optimum value for the fabrication of SnO 2 thin films without cracks.