SnO2 films: formation, electrical and optical properties

The authors investigated the influence of technological conditions on the properties of thin films of tin dioxide (SnO2) deposited with reactive magnetron sputtering in Ar–O2 carrier gas mixture. The optimal technological regimes were determined to grow high quality films with high transparency and low specific resistivity. The possible nature of the processes taking place during film deposition and annealing is discussed. Our experiments shown that films deposited at the temperature of 473 K were characterized with lower material defect level. Further annealing of these films in the air at 700 K resulted in significant decrease of their specific resistivity (down to 1.5 × 10−3 to 6 × 10−4 Ω cm) and increase of optical transmission (up to 90–95%).