Synthesis and characterization of fluorine-doped tin dioxide nanocomposites

Abstract

Fluorine-doped tin dioxide (FTO) nanocomposites have been successfully prepared through thermal treatment of the precursor synthesized via hydrolysis-precipitation method. The samples were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TG), differential thermal analysis (DTA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The results showed the spherical nanosized FTO with average crystal size of 10 nm. The crystal size of FTO nanocomposites increased with increasing the thermal treatment temperature for precursor from 400°C to 800°C. Doping of fluorine into SnO2 could caused the intensities of SnO2 diffraction peaks to decrease, indicating that fluorine doping prevented the growth of FTO nanocrystals and had no effect on tetragonal cassiterite of SnO2 in FTO structure. There also existed a good linear relationship between inner stress and particle size for FTO nanocomposites. The synthesized FTO nanocomposites could show potential application in the field of electronic materials.