Publication

Abstract : Tin oxide is one of the most extensively exploited metal oxides. Tin oxide thin film is one of the widely studied metal oxide thin film materials, thanks to its commendable optoelectronic properties. Varied techniques, including sol-gel dip-coating, spray pyrolysis, and chemical vapor deposition, have been used for obtaining tin oxide thin films. SnO2 has already achieved some niches in the marketplace; it is used as a coating on the glass that is now being most widely utilized to impart structural rigidity to the surface of bottles and as a functional coating to decorate. The doping with antimony and indium is also frequent in these thin films that enhance their properties, due to which they can be used as semiconductors. These semiconductors are mechanically hard, chemically inert, and high transparency of oxide combined with good environmental stability and high resistance to temperature have opened up numerous applications. This review aims to throw light on the current situation of SnO2 conducting thin films giving particular emphasis on antimony doped thin films and a concise idea of how these are synthesized from their precursors using techniques that involve chemical vapor deposition (CVD), spray pyrolysis, sol-gel dip-coating (SGDC) methods and about their properties which are studied using various characterization techniques that include X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and very importantly their applications. This work also consists of the comparison made between the above-stated synthesis methods.