Structural and physico-chemical studies of nanocrystalline tin oxide thin film

Nano crystalline tin oxide thin films were deposited on glass substrate at ambient temperature and annealed up to 500 °C. The structural and morphological properties characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), confirmed the crystallinity, where as optical microscopy revealed the presence of fractal network of interconnected nano particles forming uniform surface feature. The other properties carried out were Infrared spectroscopy and optical absorbance/ transmittance studies. The tin oxide was found to have optical band gap of ∼3.59 eV along with refractive index 2.03. The analytical expression enabling the derivations of the optical constants of these films for their transmission spectrum has been successfully applied.