Effect of Heat Treatment on the Nanoscale Structure and Optical Properties of Cd₂SnO₄ Thin Films Deposited by RF Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

Cadmium tin oxide Cd2SnO4 thin films with a thickness of 228.5 nm were prepared by RF magnetron sputtering technique on glass substrates at room temperature. AFM has been utilized to study the morphology of these films as a function of annealing temperature at the nanoscale. The optical properties of these films, such as the transmittance, T(λ), and reflectance, R(λ), have been studied as a function of annealing temperature. The optical constants, such as optical energy gap, width of the band tails of the localized states, refractive index, oscillatory energy, dispersion energy, real and imaginary parts of both dielectric constant and optical conductivity have been found to be affected by changing the annealing temperature of the films.