Modifications in physical, optical and electrical properties of tin oxide by swift heavy Au8+ ion bombardment

Tin oxide thin films were deposited by a novel technique called as modified-SILAR. The preparative parameters were optimized to obtain good quality thin films. As-deposited films were annealed in O2 atmosphere for 1 h at 500 °C. The annealed films were irradiated using Au8+ ions with energy of 100 MeV at different fluencies of 1 × 1011, 1 × 1012, 5 × 1012 and 1 × 1013 ions/cm2 using tandem pelletron accelerator. The irradiation-induced modifications in tin oxide thin films were studied using XRD, AFM, optical band gap, photoluminescence and I–V measurements. XRD studies showed formation of tin oxide with tetragonal structure. AFM revealed uniform deposition of the material with increase in grain size after irradiation. Decrease in band gap from 3.51 eV to 2.82 eV was seen with increases in fluency. A decrease in PL intensity, and an additional peak was observed after irradiation. I–V measurements showed a decrease in resistance with fluency.