Study of Sb/SnO2 bi-layer films prepared by ion beam sputtering deposition technique

• Bi-layer Sb/SnO2 structures were synthesized by ion beam sputtering (IBS) technique.
• The 6 nm-thick Sb film is a transition region in this study.
• The conductivity of the bi-layer films is increased as Sb thickness increases.
• The transmittance of the bi-layer films is decreased as Sb thickness increases.

In the present work, bi-layer thin films of Sb/SnO2 were produced on unheated glass substrates using ion beam sputtering (IBS) technique without post annealing treatment. The thickness of Sb layers was varied from 2 to 10 nm and the Sb layers were deposited on SnO2 layers having thicknesses of 40 nm to 115 nm. The effect of thickness was studied on the morphological, electrical and optical properties. The Sb/SnO2 bi-layer resulted in lowering the electrical resistivity as well as reducing the optical transmittance. However, the optical and electrical properties of the bi-layer films were mainly influenced by the thickness of Sb layers due to progressive transfer in structures from aggregate to continuous films. The bi-layer films show the electrical resistivity of 1.4 × 10− 3 Ω cm and an optical transmittance of 26% for Sb film having 10 nm thickness.