Growth of highly oriented tin oxide thin films by laser evaporation deposition

Conducting and transparent thin films of tin oxide were prepared by the laser evaporation of an undoped powder-pressed polycrystalline tin oxide target onto unheated substrates. After characterizing these films, the results reveal that the films are highly oriented and with a grain size ∼0.2 μm. The nearly stoichiometric deposition of tin oxide films with deposition rates exceeding 24 Å per pulse was obtained by this method. The lowest resistivity obtained is 3.0×10−3 Ω cm. The visible transmittance (between 4000 and 7000 Å) is above 75%.