Investigating the chemical bath deposited n-SnO2/p-Si heterojunction devices for optoelectronic applications

In this paper, the SnO
₂
thin film is grown on Si-substrate by employing chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The surface morphology and chemical compositions of such film are obtained from FESEM and EDX studies, respectively. The appropriate concentrations, obtained from EDX study, confirm the formation of SnO
₂
film with appropriate stoichiometry. The XRD pattern shows poly-crystalline nature of the SnO
₂
-film with <;310> and <;101>-planes. The optical band gap is measured to be 3.6 eV from the UV-VIS spectrophotometry results. The current-voltage characteristics of such n-SnO
₂
/p-Si heterojunction devices under both dark and illuminated condition show significant enhancement of photo current and thereby suggests its potential for using photo detection applications.