Effect of dopant incorporation on structural and electrical properties of sprayed SnO2:Sb films

Abstract

Antimony-doped tin oxide films were deposited by spray pyrolysis technique. The effect of antimony doping on structural and electrical properties was investigated in detail using the x-ray diffraction technique and room-temperature Hall measurements. Antimony doping did not affect the preferred growth along [200] to a considerable extent. These results were analyzed on the basis of structure factor calculations. From the Hall measurements, the lowest electrical resistivity, i.e., 5.2×10−4 Ω cm was observed for the films with a doping level of 2.3 at. % in the solution. This value of electrical resistivity is the lowest reported so far in the case of spray deposited antimony-doped SnO2 films. The grain boundary and ionized impurity scattering were observed to be prevalent in governing the electronic transport of lightly and heavily doped films, respectively.