effect of sn doping on structural and optical properties of 2d α-moo3 nanostructures

Undoped and tin (sn) doped molybdenum trioxide (α-moo3) nanostructured thin films (which has lamellar (2d) structure) have been prepared using a simple and cost effective technique of spray pyrolysis on glass substrates at 450°c. surface morphology, optical and structural properties of samples have been investigated using fesem, uv-vis spectroscopy and xrd analysis techniques, respectively. fesem images showed the formation of some discrete micro-spheres on the surface, which with the increasing in the amount of dopant homogenous and dense nano-platelets was grown on top of these micro-spheres. the xrd pattern analysis shows that all samples have been grown in orthorhombic (α-moo3) crystal structure and except for the sample doped with 50 at% sn which had a weak peak of sno2, no peak have been observed corresponding to the incorporation of sn. by increasing the amount of impurity, optical transmittance of samples were increased from ~27 to 50%. also, the band gap of samples were calculated using transmission data. an increasing of band gap from 3.34 to 3.89 ev was observed with increasing in the amount of doping.