Highly conducting and transparent antimony doped tin oxide thin films: the role of sputtering power density

Abstract Sb doped SnO 2 thin films were deposited on quartz substrates by magnetron sputtering at 600 °C and the effects of sputtering power density on the preferential orientation, structural, surface morphological, optical and electrical properties had been studied. The XRD analyses confirm the formation of cassiterite tetragonal structure and the presence of preferential orientation in (2 1 1) direction for tin oxygen thin films. The dislocation density analyses reveal that the generated defects can be suppressed by the appropriate sputtering power density in the SnO 2 lattice. The studies of surface morphologies show that grain sizes and surface roughness are remarkably affected by the sputtering power density. The resistivity of Sb doped SnO 2 thin films gradually decreases as increasing the sputtering power density, reaches a minimum value of 8.23×10 −4 Ω cm at 7.65/cm 2 and starts increasing thereafter. The possible mechanisms for the change in resistivity are proposed. The average transmittances are more than 83% in the visible region (380–780 nm) for all the thin films, the optical band gaps are above 4.1 eV. And the mechanisms of the variation of optical properties at different sputtering power densities are addressed.