Annealing Temperature Dependent Structural and Optical Properties of SnO2 Nanoparticles

Nanocrystalli ne tin dioxide (SnO2) has been synthesized by simple chemical route i.e., pyrophoric technique. The samples were annealed at various temperatures starting from 650 degrees C to 950 degrees C with a step scan of 100 degrees C using conventional high temperature furnace. The annealed samples were employed with X-ray diffractometer for structural analysis. The X-ray scanning manifests that annealed SnO2 samples have pure tetragonal rutile phase. The crystallite sizes and lattice strain on the peak augmentation of SnO2 nanoparticles are evaluated using Williamson Hall (W-H) plot and size-strain plot. The crystallite size and strain for all the samples were calculated using uniform deformation model (UDM), uniform stress deformation model (USDM), uniform deformation energy density model (UDEDM) and by the size -strain plot technique. The optical band gap (E9) for 650 degrees C annealed SnO2 sample is estimated to be 3.59 eV and there is not much variation in the optical band gap with the increase in annealed temperature of SnO2.