Synthesis and characterization of SnO2 thin films prepared by dip-coating method

The optical, electrical and structural properties of SnO2 are responsible for a large number of technological applications such as gas sensors, optical-electonic devices, varistors and displays. In this paper, we report the preparation of SnO2 thin films deposited on glass, quartz and silicon substrates by the technique of sol-gel dip-coating. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ellipsometry and Mossbauer spectroscopy. We combine the experimental results with ab initio all-electrons calculations, using the density functional theory within the framework of the full-potential linear augmented plane waves method, in order to extract hyperfine parameters. The results show that the synthesis method is able to produce good quality films and that the theory can be helpful to determine quantities difficult to be measured experimentally. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil.