engleski

Structural investigation of SnO2 doped with antimony

Tin oxide, SnO2, has been widely used as a conductor in electronic devices. Dopands, such as antimony, incorporated into SnO2 thin films cause the change in resistivity of such films. The resistivity decreases for lightly-doped SnO2, and increases for heavily-doped SnO2 [1]. The mechanism of this phenomenon is not well understood yet. The aim of the present work is to examine the influence of Sb dopand on the structure of SnO2. A series of Sb-doped SnO2 samples, with doping level of 0, 2.9, 5.9 and 12.3 at% Sb, was hydrothermally prepared and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction. The samples were tetragonal, space group P42/mnm and isostructural with TiO2(rutile). Both a and c unit-cell parameters increased as the Sb doping content increased, but the ratio c/a remained constant at the value characteristic for SnO2. Diffraction lines were broadened, indicating nanosized crystallites in the samples. The lines of pure SnO2 showed the greatest broadening. As the amount of dopand increased the broadening decreased. Also, the lines hk0 were systematically broader than the lines hk1, hk2 and hk3 for all samples as a consequence of elongation of the crystallites along the c-axis. The structure of samples containing 5.9 and 12.3 at% Sb was refined by the Rietveld method [2]. Crystal structure results indicated that both Sb3+ and Sb5+ were substituted for Sn4+ in the non-stoichiometric rutile-type phase with oxygen deficiency.

nije evidentirano

nije evidentirano