Efficacy of hydrothermally grown ASnO3 (A-Ca, Sr, Ba) transparent conducting oxide thin films

ASnO3 (A-Ca, Sr, Ba) nanostructured thin films were grown on corning glass substrates without seed layer via hydrothermal route. Structural and morphological characterisations confirmed phase purity, high crystallinity and uniform deposition of the films. Cost effective TCO, which has comparable optical and electrical properties of ITO has been the motivation of the current study. Bandgap (3.02–3.31 eV), transparency (>82%), conductivity (8.37 × 102 to 3.33 × 103 S/cm) and figure of merit values (0.8–6.04 × 10−3 Ω-1) of ASnO3(ASO) films suggest that they could be useful for several optoelectronic applications. The materials developed in this work are made up of non-toxic as well as earth abundant elements and the thin films are deposited by simple chemical solution deposition method.