From Transparent Conducting Material to Gas-Sensing Application of SnO2:Sb Thin Films

Year: 2018

Authors: Saeedabad S. H., Selopal G. S., Rozati S. M., Tavakoli Y., Sberveglieri G.

Autors Affiliation: [Saeedabad, Soheila Hemmatzadeh; Rozati, Seyed Mohammad; Tavakoli, Yaser] Univ Guilan, Dept Phys, Rasht, Iran.
[Selopal, Gurpreet Singh] Univ Elect Sci & Technol China, Inst Fundamental & Frontier Sci, Chengdu 610054, Sichuan, Peoples R China and Inst Natl Rech Sci, Ctr Energie Mat & Telecommun, 1650 Boul Lionel Boulet, Varennes, PQ J3X 1S2, Canada.
[Sberveglieri, Giorgio] Univ Brescia, Dept Informat Engn, SENSOR Lab, Via Valotti 9, I-25133 Brescia, Italy and CNR INO SENSOR Lab, Via Branze 45, I-25123 Brescia, Italy

Abstract: Transparent conductive thin films of nanocrystalline tin oxide:antimony (SnO2:Sb) were deposited on a preheated glass substrate at 400A degrees C via spray pyrolysis technique. The effects of Sb doping concentration on morphological, structural and optical properties of the films were investigated by ultraviolet (UV)-visible absorption, x-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The XRD study revealed that all the films had a polycrystalline nature, which increased with the Sb doping up to 4 wt.% and then decreased with further Sb doping. Similarly, the SEM images highlighted that the grain size of the SnO2:Sb thin films increased with Sb doping from 2 wt.% to 4 wt.% and then decreased for 6 wt.%. UV-visible study demonstrated that the average transmission in the visible region was found to vary from 35% to 75% depending on the Sb doping concentration. As a proof of concept, we implemented the SnO2:Sb thin films with different Sb doping for gas-sensing applications. To measure the selectivity of the SnO2:Sb thin films, the Sb-doped and -undoped films were exposed to different types of gases with varied concentration. The results of this work demonstrated that the SnO2:Sb thin film-based gas sensor had a high potential for NH3 at a low temperature (100A degrees C). In addition, long-term stability of the SnO2:Sb thin film-based sensor was measured at 100 ppm NH3 for 90 days.

Journal/Review: JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

Volume: 47 (9)      Pages from: 5165  to: 5173

KeyWords: Spray pyrolysis; Sb thin films; gas sensor; NH3; selectivity
DOI: 10.1007/s11664-018-6404-5

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