Study of structural and optical properties of iron, cobalt doped and iron-cobalt co-doped tin dioxide SnO2

This paper studied undoped tin dioxide (SnO2), iron doped tin dioxide (FeTO), cobalt doped tin dioxide (CTO), and iron-cobalt co-doped tin dioxide (FeCTO) thin films using spray pyrolysis technique at a temperature of 480°C heated glass. The dopant concentration value was 12wt %. Whilst, the structural and optical characteristics of fabricated thin films were studied. XRD analyses avowed the formation of rutile thin films structure along (211) and (110) as preferred orientations. The obtained crystallite size varies from 31.96 nm to 46.48 nm. SEM analysis of the surface morphology shows that the whole substrates are well covered by SnO2 uniform material with variant shape upon post doping. UV-visible investigation of optical transmittance spectra showed that the films have transparency ranging in 85-98%, with a direct bandgap in the range 3.65-3.85eV. Found results show that Fe/Co co-doped SnO2 presents improvement in properties compared to other single dopants.