Synthesis and characterization of zinc stannate thin films prepared by spray pyrolysis technique

The zinc stannate thin films were synthesized by simple and inexpensive spray pyrolysis technique on the glass and fluorine doped tin oxide coated conducting glass substrates. The as deposited films were further annealed at 500 °C temperature for 12 h. The structural optical and morphological characterization of as prepared and annealed films was carried out by XRD, UV–Vis spectroscopy, SEM and AFM techniques respectively. The structural analysis shows that films are polycrystalline and crystallized in cubic inverse spinel crystal structure. SEM studies show that grain size increases after annealing and exhibits spherical morphology. AFM study shows that roughness is higher for the post annealed film. Further the samples were tested for testing their applicability for dye sensitized solar cells. The as prepared, annealed and CNT doped samples exhibits photoconversion efficiencies 2.7, 2.8 and 3.1 % respectively.