The correlation between Physicochemical and nonlinear optical studies of tin-doped zinc oxide thin films deposited by spray pyrolysis.

Transparent conductive thin films based on Tin (Sn) doped zinc oxide (TZO) were prepared using the chemical spray pyrolysis technique. The crystalline structure, strain, stress, roughness characteristics, electrical and nonlinear optical susceptibility of TZO were studied The films have been investigated using x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy (AFM), electrical resistivity, and third harmonic generation (THG) techniques. The greatest value of the susceptibility χ(3) was about 10.91×10-12(esu) obtained from the 2% doped films, which have less roughness and the low electrical resistivity of 5×10-2 Ω cm. Moreover, third order non-linear optical susceptibilities were of the order of 10-12 (esu), higher than that of the undoped ZnO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]