Abstract
In the present work, it is focused to prepare a facile transparent conductive oxide (TCO) material—Magnesium Ortho Stannate (MgSnO3—MTO) as to minimize the shortcomings triggered by the commonly available TCOs. Magnesium acetate and Tin (II) chloride has been taken as the starting materials. In this investigation, magnesium acetate is kept constant and the tin chloride (II) has been increased in the following ratios: (MA:SC taken as 0.1 M:0.1 M-S1A, 0.1 M:0.2 M-S2A, 0.1 M:0.3 M-S3A, 0.1 M:0.4 M-S4A, 0.1 M:0.5 M-S5A). By utilizing Nebulizer Spray Pyrolysis (NSP) technique, the required material is coated onto the glass substrate and the prepared thin film is annealed at 300 °C for three hours. All magnesium tin oxide (MTO) samples exhibit strong (205) diffraction peak of rhombohedral structure of magnesium tin oxide and better crystallinity obtained in the samples S4A and S5A. Besides, this study also analysis the effects of MTO thickness on various physical and opto-electronic properties, including crystallinity, surface morphology, optical transparency, and resistivity. In such, the films of different thicknesses (varied from 310 to 590 nm), crystallinity of the film improved with thinner-to-thin thickness variations. The average visible transmission exceeds80% and the band gap value is 3.65 eV for the sample S5A. FESEM results shows that after annealing grain size has been improved while the molar ratio is increased. Hall Effect studies show the resistivity value is decreased from 10–2 to 10–3 (Ω/cm), while the molar ratio of Tin Chloride (SnCl2) is increased. A comparison of efficiency is performed on Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) constructed using various combinations of MTO/MTO photoanodes and counter electrodes. It turns out that DSSC composed of platinum-coated MTO (S5A) as counter electrode and TiO2-coated MTO (S5A) photoanode exhibit superior performance of 2.72% compared to the other cells.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to acknowledge Dr. M. Karthega, Assistant Professor, Department of Sciences and Dr. Sudip Kumar Batabyal, Research Scientist, Amrita Center for Industrial Research and Innovation (ACIRI), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, India, for providing lab facilities and their constant support. I extend my sincere thanks to faculties in the Department of Physics, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore for their grateful support and offering the lab facilities to complete this work.
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Kiruthiga, G., Rajni, K.S., Raguram, T. et al. Indium-free MgSnO3 transparent conductive oxide layer: investigation on structural, optical and electrical properties and photovoltaic performance analysis. Appl Nanosci 13, 3421–3434 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-022-02353-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-022-02353-5