Laser ablated nanostructured tin oxide thin films for optoelectronic device applications

Nanostructured tin oxide (SnO2) thin films are prepared by pulsed laser deposition technique and the films are annealed at different temperatures viz. 300, 400, 500 and 600 °C. The as-deposited and annealed films are characterized by X-ray diffraction, Micro-Raman spectroscopy, Atomic force microscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy and Photoluminescence spectroscopy. The films annealed at higher temperature exhibit more intense and sharper X-ray diffraction peaks compared to other annealed films showing their enhanced crystallinity. Raman spectra of nanocrystalline tin oxide exhibits very broad spectral feature extending from 400– 700 cm−1. All the films exhibit a broad luminescence band centered on 376 nm and a blue emission at 450 and 470 nm.