Morphological, Structural and Optical Properties of ZnO Thin Films Deposited by Dip Coating Method

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited on glass substrat by dip coating technique. The effects of sol aging time on the deposition of ZnO films was studied by using the field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and optical transmission techniques. The morphology of the films strongly depends on preparation route and deposition technique. It is noteworthy that films deposited from the freshly prepared solution feature indistinct characteristics; had relatively poor crystalline quality and low optical transmittance in the visible region. The increase in sol aging time resulted in a gradual improvement in crystallinity (in terms of peak sharpness and peak intensity) of the hexagonal phase for all diffraction peaks. Effect of sol aging on optical transparency is quite obvious through increased transmission with prolonged sol aging time. Interestingly, 72-168 h sol aging time was found to be optimal to achieve smooth surface morphology, good crystallinity and high optical transmittance which were attributed to an ideal stability of solution. These findings present a better-defined and more versatile procedure for production of clean ZnO sols of readily adjustable nanocrystalline size.

Compositional, Structural, Morphological, and Optical Properties of ZnO Thin Films Prepared by PECVD Technique

“…These values are summarized in Table 2. [43] It can be observed that the parameter a agrees reasonably with those reported in the literature, while c diverges slightly. This observation can be explained by the oxygen behavior in the subsurface of the film during the growth process conducting to the formation of ZnOx nanocrystaline phases.…”

All‐Solution‐Processed Silver Nanowire Window Electrode‐Based Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells Enabled with Amorphous Metal Oxide Protection

“…When the top AZO layer is included in the electrode structure, the resultant composite electrodes show lower transparency than AgNW/AZO. [26,27] The higher surface roughness, resulting from small c-AZO particles, contributes to light scattering and decreased transparency. This could be explained by the fact that the single-layered c-AZO film has a lower optical transparency than the a-AZO film of similar thickness ( Figures S4 and S5, Supporting Information).…”

Deposition of zinc oxide as an electron transport layer in planar perovskite solar cells by spray and SILAR methods comparable with spin coating

“…42 The shape and size distribution of the nanocrystals in each thin lm appears to be relatively regular as compared to that in previous reports. 43 The morphology of the perovskite layers of the cells also varied by changing the deposition methods. Fig.…”

“…[29][30][31] Table 1 shows the microstructural properties for the strongest peaks appearing in the X-ray diffraction pattern of the synthesized ZnO (100, 002 and 101), applied as ETM in this research. The crystallite size was calculated using the Scherer formula 32,33 as follows:…”