Influence of annealing temperature on the structural, topographical and optical properties of sol–gel derived ZnO thin films

Abstract

a b s t r a c t Keywords:Zinc oxide thin film Sol-gel preparation Annealing X-ray diffraction Atomic force microscopy Optical properties This investigation deals with the effect of annealing temperature on the structural, topographical and optical properties of Zinc Oxide thin films prepared by sol-gel method. The structural properties were studied using X-ray diffraction and the recorded patterns indicated that all the films had a preferred orientation along (002) plane and the crystallinity along with the grain size were augmented with annealing temperature. The topographical modification of the films due to heat treatment was probed by atomic force microscopy which revealed that annealing roughened the surface of the film. The optical properties were examined by a UVvisible spectrophotometer which exhibited that maximum transmittance reached nearly 90% and it diminished with increasing annealing temperature.

Influence of Al concentration and annealing temperature on structural, optical, and electrical properties of Al co-doped ZnO thin films

“…The minimum crystallite size of 12.98 nm is belonging to Al 15.62 ZnO film. The same trend was observed in the studies performed on AZO films [15,19]. These studies assign the stress formation as reason for decreasing crystallite size and crystallinity with increasing Al content, too.…”

“…However, we did not observe remarkable crystallization for Al 9.00 ZnO even after annealing at 500 • C. The extra peaks that can be attributed to deviation from single crystal phase were not observed. In the literature, as a negative effect of annealing process some peaks such as the ones that originate from (1 0 0) and (1 0 1) planes of polycrystalline structured Würtzite ZnO lattice [17,18] or Al 2 O 3 and metallic Al phase characteristic peaks [19] were registered from annealed samples.…”

Ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of lead-free BaTiO3 doped Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 thin films from metal-organic solution deposition

“…With an increase in the annealing temperature, the occurrence of surface pinholes and voids decreases and there is also a slight increase in grain size, indicating that high temperature annealing assists particle growth. This observation can be explained by noting that, at high temperatures, atoms have sufficient diffusion activation energy to occupy the more energetically favorable sites in the crystal lattice, with the result that grains with lower surface energy eventually coalescence by grain boundary diffusion leading to significant grain growth [35]. The cross-sectional micrograph and film thickness are presented in Fig.…”

Variation of Structural and Surface Properties of RF Sputtered Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) Thin Films Due to the Influence of Annealing Temperature and Time

“…However, when the annealing temperature increases, the average roughness also increased. One possible factor is the kinetic energy of deposited species increase with the RF sputtering power enhance the atom mobility in local regions [21]. The increasing kinetic energy increases probability of incident particle for surface diffusion wh growth, as a result the roughness of films increase.…”