SnO2–ZnO nanocomposite thin films: The influence of structure, composition and crystallinity on optical and electrophysical properties

Abstract

SnO2–ZnO thin films consisting of nanoscale crystallites were obtained on glass and silicon substrates by solid-phase low-temperature pyrolysis. The synthesized materials were studied by XRD and SEM methods, electrophysical and optical properties were evaluated, as well as the band gap was calculated. It was shown that regardless of the phase composition all films were optically transparent in the visible range (310–1000 nm). The nanocrystallites’ minimum size, the highest activation energy of the conductivity and the smallest band gap calculated for indirect transitions were shown for a thin film 50SnO2–50ZnO. It was assumed that the band gap decreasing might be attributed to the existence of surface electric fields with a strength higher than 4 × 105 V/cm.