Crystallization by laser annealing of amorphous SnO2 films on the Si (100) surface

Thin films of SnO2 were fabricated on Si wafer (100) substrates in a vacuum chamber at 10−5 Torr using the pulsed laser deposition technique. An excimer laser was used to ablate a SnO2 polycrystalline target and deposit thin films on a Si support which was maintained at 300 °C. The deposited amorphous films were analyzed using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. To convert the films to crystalline form, two approaches were used: oven annealing and pulsed laser annealing. Both annealing techniques resulted in crystalline thin films of SnO2 in the rutile structure, with oven annealing resulting in higher quality crystalline films. Thickness of the as-deposited SnO2 film can determine crystalline phase of the annealed film.