Optical properties of amorphous and crystalline Sb-doped SnO2 thin films studied with spectroscopic ellipsometry: Optical gap energy and effective mass

We investigated the optical properties of amorphous and crystalline antimony (Sb)-doped tin dioxide (SnO2) thin films grown using the co-sputtering deposition method at room temperature. We used undoped and Sb-doped (8 wt. %) SnO2 targets. Varying the relative power ratio of the two targets, we controlled the Sb-composition of the SnO2:Sb thin films up to 2.3 at. % of Sb contents. Through annealing, the as-grown amorphous SnO2:Sb thin films were transformed to crystalline thin films. Dielectric functions were obtained from the measured ellipsometry angles, Ψ and Δ, using the Drude and parametric optical constant models. We determined the absorption coefficients and optical gap energies of the SnO2:Sb thin films from the dielectric functions. We found increasing optical gap energy with increasing Sb composition. Increases in the Drude tail amplitudes, a signature of free carrier concentrations, were found in annealed, crystalline thin films with increasing Sb composition. The increase in the optical gap en...