Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 5793 – 5798 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect 2214-7853 © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the Committee Members of International Conference on Solid State Physics 2013 (ICSSP’13) doi:10.1016/j.matpr.2015.11.129 International Conference on Solid State Physics 2013 (ICSSP’13) Tin oxide thin films prepared by sol-gel for PV applications Sehrish Gul, Anam Azam, Nazmina Imrose, Saira Riaz*, Shahzad Naseem Centre of Excellence in Solid State Physics, University of the Punjab, Lahore-54590, Pakistan Abstract Due to unique electronic and optical properties tin oxide has gained much attention. Tin oxide (SnO 2 ) thin films have been synthesized using conventional sol-gel method and are annealed at 200 to 500°C. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern indicates polycrystalline SnO 2 with orthorhombic crystal structure. With the increase in calcination temperature of SnO 2 an increase in crystallite size shows coalescence of nuclei. High temperature annealing of SnO 2 results in increase in crystallite size and decrease in dislocation density. SnO 2 thin films have high value of transmission (~85%) and band gap of 3.6eV. These prepared thin films with high value of transmission and less defects can be successfully employed in solar cells as window layer. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the Committee Members of International Conference on Solid State Physics 2013 (ICSSP’13). Keywords: Tin oxide; Sol-gel; Photovoltaic; Thin films * Corresponding author. Tel.: +92-423-5839387; fax: +92-429-9231139. E-mail address: sehrishgull35@yahoo.com © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the Committee Members of International Conference on Solid State Physics 2013 (ICSSP’13)