Impact of air exposure and annealing on the chemical and electronic properties of the surface of SnO₂ nanolayers deposited by rheotaxial growth and vacuum oxidation

• Monika Kwoka and
• Maciej Krzywiecki

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 514–521, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.55

• the distance between the valence band edge and the Fermi level energy. This was attributed to oxygen diffusion through the porous SnO2 surface as measured by atomic force microscopy. Keywords: Fermi level position; RGVO nanolayers; rheotaxial growth and vacuum oxidation (RGVO); surface chemistry; tin

• relative (Sn4+/Sn2+ + Sn0) concentration increased. It shows that the in situ RGVO nanolayers consists of a mixture of SnO and SnO2 with only weak domination of the latter one. This is in good agreement with the decomposition of the XPS O1s line (Figure 2b) in which the (O-Sn4+/O-Sn2+) ratio is 1.05. After

• an increase of the water and carbon contaminations, which were in their majority desorbed during UHV annealing. Hence, our studies proved that the SnO2 nanolayers are not susceptible to significant air-induced contaminations. Moreover, the electronic properties of RGVO nanolayers were changed upon