Investigation on band gap energy and effect of various surface plasma treatments on nano structured SnO2 semiconductor

For any semiconducting metal oxides, dielectric properties of nanomaterial play an important role, which determines various activities such as sensing, catalytic activity, adsorption, etc. These properties depend on the chemical composition, method of synthesis and surface characteristics. Various physical and chemical properties of nanomaterials can be tuned by choosing various chemical treatments or novel synthetic routes. Among various metal oxide semiconductors, SnO₂ is extensively used for gas sensing applications. Surface plasma treatment is one of the advanced techniques used for improving the sensing properties of SnO₂. Surface modification can be done by treating with high energy reactive species in plasma by collision and chemical reaction. In this work, we discuss how impregnation of foreign atoms changes the band gap energy of SnO₂ thick films, which is an imperative for any semiconducting material. Chemically synthesized SnO₂ thick film was treated with plasma gases and using different plasma parameters. The performances variations were measured by using different characterization techniques including SEM, TEM, Raman, UV-VIS spectroscopy, etc.