Thursday, October 10, 2024
Relatively Clear Conductive Tin Oxide Film
It's fun playing with fire and acid. Some precautions needed. This attempt used a much smaller firebrick cavity, and the glass was not reheated between the 12 sprays of tin chloride. I tried masking part of a square glass slide with a coverslip, but the first attempt melted it, and the second blew it to bits when I sprayed the tin chloride on. Tested coverslip fragments were non-conducting. Will probably use another piece of slide as a mask next time.
But the square itself had a reasonably clear coating that was definitely conductive, giving under 9M from edge to edge in places. Wrangling multimeter probes into the right position was tricky (better make something more efficient and pretty) and I ended up wedging the black base (a convenient rubberised battery pack with matches, what could go wrong?) at the same angle as the taped-up probes. Here's a sample picture of the conductivity:
And this is the points of contact. Some 6mm lengths of "clear" glass measured 860K. Note that the far edge of the slide, which was in contact with the flame, is slightly crazed. A bit like me...
