IP: 136.0.99.24 On: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 06:49:08 Copyright: American Scientific Publishers Delivered by Ingenta Copyright © 2018 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Article Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Vol. 18, 2569–2575, 2018 www.aspbs.com/jnn Deposition of Tin Oxide Thin Films by Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption Reaction Method and Its Characterization Shipra Raj 1 , Sharad Kumar 2 , Suneel Kumar Srivastava 2 , Pradip Kar 1 , and Poulomi Roy 1 ∗ 1 Department of Chemistry, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi 835215, Jharkand, India 2 Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721302, West Bengal, India Tin oxide thin films were uniformly deposited by successive ionic layer adsorption reaction (SILAR) method on glass substrates using ethylene diamine as a complexing agent. The proper annealing treatment in air converts as-deposited amorphous films into crystalline and removes defects, reduc- ing strain in the crystal lattice. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The film shows good optical transparency in the range of 200–1000 nm wavelength and electrical resistivity decreases upon annealing. Keywords: Tin Oxide, Thin Films, SILAR, Annealing, Optical, Electrical. 1. INTRODUCTION Tin oxide (SnO 2  is considered as one of the most impor- tant n-type semiconductors exhibiting wide band gap value of 3.6 eV at 300 K. 1 2 Owing to high optical transparency (T> 85%) in the visible range, low electrical resistance and good thermal resistance, SnO 2 has extensively been used in large number of optoelectric devices, such as, light emitting diodes, as electrode and buffer layer material in solar cells, transparent field effect transistors etc. 3 4 The other important applications of SnO 2 includes its use as gas sensors and efficient anode in lithium ion batteries due to reversible electrochemical reactions with lithium ion. 5–14 Further, SnO 2 has also been used as an alternative mate- rial for toxic and expensive CdO, ZnO or In 2 O 3 acting as transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) in large number of electrical devices. 15 In view of this, SnO 2 thin films attracted consider- able amount of attentions in recent days. A number of methods have been employed to deposit high qual- ity homogeneous SnO 2 thin films, e.g., electron beam evaporation, 1 pulsed laser deposition, 16 spray pyrolysis, 17 vacuum evaporation, 18 19 chemical vapour deposition, 20 chemical bath deposition, 21 22 successive ionic layer ∗ Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method 23–26 etc. Among them SILAR method is considered to be simple and cost- effective in fabricating high quality thin SnO 2 films. The method is accompanied by the adsorption of ions on the substrate’s surface by the attractive forces (vander Waal forces or cohesive forces) followed by heterogenous reac- tion between ions on to the substrate. 26 27 However, very limited works are available on the depo- sition of SnO 2 thin films by SILAR method. Yildirim et al. reported the deposition of SnO 2 thin film using ammo- nia as a complexing agent and showed that upto 390 nm thickness can be deposited repeating 100 cycles. 25 26 Pusawale and his co-workers deposited hydrous tin oxide (SnO 2 :H 2 O) thin films on stain-less steel substrate in presence of controlled hydrolysis in acidic medium. 23 A deposited amount of 0.20 mg cm -2 could be achieved after 75 cycles. In this paper, we report the successful deposition of SnO 2 thin film by SILAR method using ethylene diamine (EDA) as a complexing agent. It may be interesting to mention that the use of EDA as complexing agent leads considerably improved results in compared to other reports. To the best of our knowledge, no reports are available on the deposition of SnO 2 thin films by SILAR method using EDA as complexing agent. The effect of annealing temperature on to the structural, surface J. Nanosci. Nanotechnol. 2018, Vol. 18, No. 4 1533-4880/2018/18/2569/007 doi:10.1166/jnn.2018.14301 2569