The influence of methanol addition during the film growth of SnO2 by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition

Undoped tin oxide (SnO2) thin films have been deposited in a stagnant point flow chemical vapor deposition reactor from a water/tin tetrachloride mixture. By adding methanol during the deposition process the film electrical properties change significantly: ten times more conductive SnO2 films are obtained, with remarkably high mobility values of up to 55 cm2/V s. The investigations on the morphological and structural properties indicate that the main effect of methanol is the densification of the SnO2 films, which probably causes the improvement in the electrical properties. In all conditions the nucleation and coalescence phases take place very early in the growth. Below 10 nm the films are already very conductive, which is very beneficial to applications that have strict requirements in terms of film transparency.