Enhancement of Mn2+contributions on improvement of electrical characteristics for sol-gel deposited Zn2-xMnxSnO4nanostructured films

The study of transition metal impurity in transparent metal oxides has gained much attention in scientific community for developing high efficiency optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices. Here, we report the role of Mn dopant on structure and optoelectronic properties of zinc stannate (ZTO) films deposited by spin coating technique using acetylacetone as sol-gel precursor solvent. X-ray diffraction and Raman studies validate the preferential growth along (311) plane and characteristic vibrational modes at 552 and 667 cm(-1), respectively for inverse spinel ZTO system. The scanning electron microscopy reveals the change in morphology with Mn content in ZTO films. Chemical structure investigations also confirm an upsurge in Mn(2+)state with Mn content. The optical transparency at 550 nm was found to decline from 80.2 to 25.4% along with a decrease in optical gap from 4.32 to 3.40 eV with Mn content. An increase in defect dominated emission spectra with dopant content was observed in ZTO films. An enhancement in carrier concentration and drastic decrement in carrier mobility to favour decreased electrical resistivity with Mn dopant in ZTO films. These results are incredible stimulus to optoelectronic properties of ZTO for developing next generation of transparent conductors for optoelectronic devices.