Tin

Tin (Sn) — 10-Year Trends

As of 2026-09-25 · the last 10 years

Research intensity is currently at about 100% of the element's all-time peak, a high point reached in 2025 within this window.

Research intensity ran from about 91% of the element's own all-time peak in 2016 to about 100% in 2026 — a steady climb, and the all-time peak (2025) falls inside this window. Over the same span its share of research attention across all elements held steady. Among the 118 elements, tin has a larger-than-average research literature.

The number of papers involving the element rose from about 67,797 in 2016 to about 142,555 in 2025 (2.1x). That matches the growth of the literature as a whole over the same years: the general tide of scientific output, not a surge specific to the element.

The core of tin’s recent research lies in Tin Perovskites as Lead-Free Photovoltaic Alternatives. This community develops tin-based halide perovskites and tin oxide layers as non-toxic replacements for lead in solar cells, with distinctive work on tin halides and electron transport layers. Tin is a minor presence in this much larger community, appearing in about 7% of its papers. However, it accounts for about 14.5% of tin’s own recent research, a share that has remained steady compared to the previous period. A 2021 Nature paper on perovskite solar cells with atomically coherent interlayers on SnO2 electrodes, cited over 3,100 times, anchors this field, alongside a 2024 Science study on stable inverted perovskite solar cells, cited over 510 times.

A second major area is Tin Oxide Transparent Electrodes for Flexible Optoelectronics, where researchers deposit tin oxide films to create flexible, transparent conducting substrates for organic solar cells. Here, tin is one strand of a broader community, involved in about 21% of its papers. This community has seen a decline in its share of tin research, dropping from about 16.4% to 10.2% over the last decade. Key work includes a 2020 ACS Energy Letters paper on hole transport layer-free organic solar cells, cited over 680 times, and a 2023 review in Nanomaterials on transparent conducting oxides, cited over 180 times.

The third material community is Tin Dioxide Thin Films for Electrochromic Devices, focusing on the synthesis and characterization of fluorine-doped tin dioxide films for their structural and optical properties. Tin is one strand of this broader community, appearing in about 18% of its papers. Its share of tin research has remained steady at about 8.1%. Notable contributions include a 2022 review in Sensors and Actuators B Chemical on SnO2 nanostructure gas sensors, cited over 340 times, and a 2024 Chemical Engineering Journal paper on hydrogen gas sensors, cited over 160 times.

Overall, the composition of tin research has shifted slightly: the perovskite community has held its ground, while the transparent electrode community has lost share to the remainder of the field, which now holds about 67% of tin’s clustered research.

For a deeper look at tin's current standing and recent developments, see the Last 12 Months and Executive Brief reports.