Fluorine-Doped Tin Oxide Thin Films Deposition by Sol-Gel Technique

In the present work, undoped (SnO2) and fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) thin films were prepared by sol-gel process using a solution composed of (SnCl2, H2O), (NH4F), and ethanol mixture. The fluorine concentration effect on structural, optical and electrical properties of SnO2 films is investigated. The electrical properties of FTO films prepared by sol gel remain relatively lower than the ones deposited by other techniques. In present paper, we try to elucidate this difference. Films composition and the FTIR analysis, of films and formed precipitate during film growth, indicate that few amounts of fluorine are incorporated in SnO2 network, most of fluorine atoms remain in the solution. The films resistivity is reduced from 1.1 Ω·cm for undoped films to 3 × 10-2 Ω·cm for 50 wt.% doped FTO, but remains higher than the reported ones in the literature. This high resistivity is explained in terms of fluorine bonding affinity in the solution.