Aging effect of the precursor solution on the structural, morphological and opto-electrical properties of spray deposited CdO thin films

Abstract

Nanostructured CdO thin films have been prepared on glass substrates by spray pyrolysis technique using perfume atomizer from fresh and aged (1, 2, 3 and 4 days) precursor solutions. XRD studies confirm that all the films exhibit cubic crystal structure with a (1 1 1) preferential orientation. The preferential orientation factor f(1 1 1) increases with an increase in aging the period of precursor solution. The 2θ value of the (1 1 1) plane shifts towards lower Bragg angles with aging inferring an expansion in the lattice volume of the aged films. Increased crystallite size is observed for the 3-days aged film for which minimum strain and dislocation density values are obtained. Optical transparency increases with an increase in aging period of the precursor solution and the optical band gap exhibits a red shift from 2.48 eV to 2.32 eV. Minimum resistivity of 0.78 × 10−2 Ω·cm is observed for the CdO film prepared from 3-days aged solution. The obtained results infer that the CdO film prepared from 3-days aged solution exhibits better physical properties than the others.

CdO:Ag thin films with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity against metanil yellow

“…The electrical resistivity values of the CdO:Ag thin films deposited with 0, 1, 2 and 3 wt% Ag doping concentrations measured using a four point setup are presented in Table 1. The electrical resistivity value of 0.71 × 10 −2 Ω cm observed for pure CdO exactly matched the earlier reported value [25]. With Ag doping up to the 2 wt% electrical resistivity seems to decrease drastically above this concentration it slightly increases.…”

Solvent volume dominated improved Haacke’s quality factor values realized for CdO:Mo thin films well suited for optoelectronic applications

“…Suganya et al (2014) has been adopted here to coat CdO:Mo thin films. Properties of sprayed films are dominated by spray parameters such as precursor molar concentration, substrate temperature, doping concentration, substrate to nozzle distance, spray rate and solvent volume (Raja et al 2019). By varying the solvent volume, the reactive species being deposited increases which increase the thicknesses of the deposited films and simultaneously altering their structural, electrical and optical properties.…”