Electrical and dielectric properties of co-precipitated nanocrystalline tin oxide

Nanocrystalline tin oxide (SnO2) powders were synthesized by chemical co-precipitation method using stannic chloride pentahydrate (SnCl4·5H2O) precursor in aqueous medium. The influence of sintering temperatures on the crystalline structure, morphological, electrical, dielectric and XPS properties has been studied. X-ray diffraction study reveals that sintered powder which exhibits tetragonal crystal structure and both crystallinity as well as crystal size increase with increase in temperature. The nature of species of various absorption bonds viz. Sn–O, O–Sn–O and O–H involved in sintered SnO2 samples has been studied using FTIR technique. The morphological studies reveal randomly arranged grains with compact nature and grain size increases with sintering temperature. Measurements of electrical properties show relatively lower resistivity (≈102–103 Ω cm) and higher dielectric constant at 400 °C than other sintering temperatures. The compositional analysis and electronic behavior of SnO2 nanoparticles is studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The symmetric spin orbit splitting of Sn 3d5/2 ground state and Sn 3d3/2 excited states is observed with sintering temperature while O 1s is recognized with O2− state.