Structural, optical, and electrical properties via two simple routes for the synthesis of multi-phase potassium antimony oxide thin films

Abstract

Multi-phase ternary oxide glass thin films of potassium antimony oxide were synthesized via dip coating (DC) and spray pyrolysis (SP) methods. The growth of thin film was conducted on a non-conductive borosilicate glass substrate. Surface morphology was investigated and showed different characteristics. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed the peaks corresponded to the monoclinic KSb3O5 and K2Sb4O11 phases. The structural parameter analysis shows that the lower values of micro strain (ε), dislocation density (δ), and stacking fault probability (SF) with higher number (N) of particle in the multi-phase thin film for the spray pyrolysis method confirm slightly larger crystallite size, less crystal imperfection, and less structural disorder. The lower average transmission, absorption, and extinction coefficients resulted to higher refractive index, permittivity, and electrical susceptibility for the sample synthesized by a spray pyrolysis method. In addition, the average energy band gap values (Eg) of 3.57 and 3.60 eV were obtained for the dip coating and spray pyrolysis methods, respectively. However, the lower Rs (14.69 × 107 Ω/sq.) with higher σh (85.09 S/cm) and the FOM(H-HR) (0.183 Ω-1) of the multi-phase K–Sb–O thin film for the dip coating method were obtained may be due to more interconnections generated at the interface and there are less residual on the surface of thin film.