Synthesis and characterization of nanocrystalline SnO2 film by sol-gel assisted screen-printing route

Generally, the sol–gel route engages spin-coating or dip-coating for the film deposition on a substrate. This paper first time establishes the synthesis of SnO2 film using an innovative and economical sol-gel assisted screen-printing route. As deposited film was finally sintered at 450 °C for 10 min. The polycrystalline nature and single-phase tetragonal structure of SnO2 was confirmed by XRD result. SEM result exposes the homogeneous pattern of different size particles with porous nature. Diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS) analysis shows the band gap of sintered SnO2 film to be 3.65 eV. The Hall measurement test conveys the n-type conductivity for the film having a resistivity of 1.07 x 10-3 Ω cm.