Production and characterization of tin oxide thin films deposited via solution combustion synthesis

The main goal of this thesis work is the production and characterization of Tin oxide thin film deposited via Solution Combustion Synthesis (SCS). Different precursors are used in order to study the effect of the chemical nature of the reagent on the structural, morphological and electrical properties of the thin films. Tin oxide was chosen because is one of the most promising candidates for p-type oxide. In fact, the semiconductor oxides reported in the literature are mostly limited to n-type and there is a need for solution processed p-type oxide semiconductors to achieve Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductors (CMOS) using all oxide materials. Anyway, the production window of solution processed for p-type SnO is narrow and Silver doping will be used to enhance the probability to get it. If production of p-type Tin oxide will not be achieved, the work will be focused on n-type SnO2 and on the optimisation of devices made with this material, either Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) or Transparent Conductive Oxides (TCOs). Samples made in this work show good optical properties, like transmittance over 80% and energy gap values around 3.79 eV, but none of them turned out to be a p-type oxide or a good TFT. Samples annealed at higher temperatures have good electrical conductivity properties, which could lead to a future study in order to optimise these materials for TCO purposes.