Synthesis and characterizations of Nano Structured SnO2 Thick Films and their Micro Structural Analysis

This paper presents synthesis, thick film fabrication and characterizations of the nanostructured SnO2 powder by disc type ultrasonicated microwave assisted centrifuge technique. The selected material is low cost and readily available. Synthesis procedure is quite simple. The obtained SnO2 particles are in nanometer scale and dispersed with very large surface areas. Nano-scaled grains exhibit high surface to volume ratio. Thick films of as synthesized powder were fabricated by simple screen printing technique followed by the calcinations at 500oC for 1 hr. Optimizing the particular conditions, the thick films can be used for gas sensing applications. The film samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive analysis by X rays (EDAX), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), etc.