Structural, Electrical and Optical Properties of p-Type Transparent Conducting SnO2:Zn Film

Highly transparent, p-type conducting SnO2:Zn films were deposited on quartz substrates by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering using a 12 wt% ZnO doped with 88 wt% SnO2 ceramic target followed by annealing at various temperatures. The effect of annealing temperature on the structural, electrical and optical performances of SnO2:Zn films has been studied. XRD results show that all the SnO2:Zn films possess tetragonal rutile structure with the preferred orientation of (101). Hall effect results indicate that at 873 K for 3 h was the optimum annealing parameters for p-type SnO2:Zn films with relatively high hole concentration and low resistivity of 3.334 × 1019 cm−3 and 3.588 Ω cm, respectively. The average transmission of the p-type SnO2:Zn films were above 80% in the visible light range. In addition, p-type conductivity was also confirmed by the non-linear characteristics of a p-type SnO2:Zn/n-type SnO2:Sb structure.