ORIGINAL PAPER Synthesis and Characterization of Tin Oxide Nanoparticles by Solid State Chemical Reaction Method Parvin Sarabadani • Mahdi Sadeghi • Mohamadreza Ghasemi • Zargham Asadollahi • Narges Afshari Received: 23 January 2011 / Published online: 18 February 2011 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract High purity tin oxide nanopowders have been synthesized by using a solid-state chemical reaction technique with annealing at elevated temperature. The effects of two parameters, specifically by controlling the annealing temperature and kind of alkaline chlorides as precursors, the effect on particle size, morphology and IR spectra of synthesized tin oxide nanopowder were investigated. From the X-ray pattern, the crystal structure of the synthesized powders was confirmed as a tetragonal structure. Based on the recorded FTIR spectrum of SnO 2 , the IR bands due to SnO 2 vibrations and its lattice modes were observed at 625 and 690 cm -1 , respectively. In addition, an important characterization peak has been identified at 1,450 cm -1 due to Sn–O–Sn bridges observed only when LiCl was used as precursor. The formation of Sn–O–Sn bridges was confirmed by TGA–DTA analysis. According to the SEM images, it is obvious to notice that the kind of alkaline chlorides as precursors play a dominant role in controlling the morphology of tin oxide nanopowders. Keywords Tin oxide  Nano-particles  Solid state  Synthesis Introduction Nano-structured materials have attracted increasing interest because of their novel characteristic properties and potential technological applications [1]. Among such materials, tin oxide nanoparticles has recently received a great scientific interest because of their wide range of applications as gas-sensing materials, antistatic films, thin film resisters and anti reflecting coatings in solar cells [2]. These nanoparticles are synthesized by several methods such as sol–gel [3], spray pyrolysis [4], P. Sarabadani  M. Sadeghi (&)  M. Ghasemi  Z. Asadollahi  N. Afshari Agricultural, Medical and Industrial Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, Karaj, Iran e-mail: msadeghi@nrcam.org 123 J Clust Sci (2011) 22:131–140 DOI 10.1007/s10876-011-0350-1