Sol–gel deposition of fluorine-doped tin oxide glasses for dye sensitized solar cells

Thin films of fluorine-doped tin-oxide (FTO) were prepared by a sol–gel process using the combination of SnCl2·H2O, NH4F and isopropanol. The effects of annealing temperature on structural, electrical and optical properties of FTO were studied. It was found that films annealed at temperatures above 500 °C exhibit resistivity of around 30 Ω/sq with an optical transparency up to 90%, which is comparable with commercially available FTO coated glasses. A dye-sensitized solar cell was fabricated with the optimized thin film and yielded power conversion efficiency~1.58%.