The influence of the reaction gas composition during the DC magnetron sputtering process on the structural, chemical and optical properties of Ce-oxide thin films was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirmed that all thin films exhibited a polycrystalline character with cubic fluorite structure for cerium dioxide. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses revealed that cerium is present in two oxidation states, namely as CeO2 and Ce2O3, at the surface of the films prepared at oxygen/argon flow ratios between 0% and 7%, whereas the films are completely oxidized into CeO2 as the aforementioned ratio increases beyond 14%. Various optical parameters for the thin films (including an optical band gap in the range of 2.25–3.1 eV) were derived from the UV–Vis reflectance. A significant change in the band gap was observed as oxygen/argon flow ratio was raised from 7% to 14% and this finding is consistent with the high-resolution XPS analysis of Ce 3d that reports a mixture of Ce2O3 and CeO2 in the films. Density functional theory (DFT+U) implemented in the Cambridge Serial Total Energy Package (CASTEP) was carried out to simulate the optical constants of CeO2 clusters at ground state. The computed electronic density of states (DOSs) of the optimized unit cell of CeO2 yields a band gap that agrees well with the experimentally measured optical band gap. The simulated and measured absorption coefficient (α) exhibited a similar trend and, to some extent, have similar values in the wavelength range from 100 to 2500 nm. The combined results of this study demonstrate good correlation between the theoretical and experimental findings.
AlO-doped ZnO nanocrystalline thin films from with nano crystallite size in the range (19-15 nm) were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition technique. The reduction of crystallite size by increasing of doping ratio shift the bandgap to IR region the optical band gap decreases in a consistent manner, from 3.21to 2.1 eV by increasing AlO doping ratio from 0 to 7wt% but then returns to grow up to 3.21 eV by a further increase the doping ratio. The bandgap increment obtained for 9% AlO dopant concentration can be clarified in terms of the Burstein–Moss effect whereas the aluminum donor atom increased the carrier's concentration which in turn shifts the Fermi level and widened the bandgap (blue-shift). The engineering of the bandgap by low
... Show MoreA thermal evaporation technique was used to prepare ZnO thin films. The samples were prepared with good quality onto a glass substrate and using Zn metal. The thickness varied from (100 to 300) ±10 nm. The structure and optical properties of the ZnO thin films were studied. The results of XRD spectra confirm that the thin films grown by this technique have hexagonal wurtzite, and also aproved that ZnO films have a polycrystalline structure. UV-Vis measurement, optical transmittance spectra, showed high transmission about 90% within visible and infrared range. The energy gap is found to be between 3.26 and 3.14e.V for 100 to 300 nm thickness respectivly. Atomic Force Microscope AFM (topographic image ) shows the grain size incre
... Show MoreZinc Oxide transparent thin films (ZnO) with different thickness from (220 to 420)nm
±15nm were prepared by thermal evaporation technique onto glass substrates at 200 with
the deposition rate of (10 2) nm sec
-1
, X-ray diffraction patterns confirm the proper phase
formation of the material. The investigation of (XRD) indicates that the (ZnO) film is
polycrystalline type of Hexagonal and the preferred orientation along (002) plane. The Optical
properties of ZnO were determined through the optical transmission method using ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer with wavelength (300 – 1100) nm. The optical band gap values of
ZnO thin films were slightly increased from (2.9 - 3.1) eV as the film thickn
In this work, p-n junctions were fabricated from highly-pure nanostructured NiO and TiO2 thin films deposited on glass substrates by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The structural characterization showed that the prepared multilayer NiO/TiO2 thin film structures were highly pure as no traces for other compounds than NiO and TiO2 were observed. It was found that the absorption of NiO-on-TiO2 structure is higher than that of the TiO2-on-NiO. Also, the NiO/TiO2 heterojunctions exhibit typical electrical characteristics, higher ideality factor and better spectral responsivity when compared to those fabricated from the same materials by the same technique and with larger particle size and lower structural purity.
Cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films were deposited using the sequencing ion layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method. In this study, the effect of the pH value of an aqueous solution of cadmium acetate at a concentration of 0.2 mol of the cadmium oxide film was determined. The solution source for the cadmium oxide film was cadmium ions and an aqueous ammonia solution. The CdO films were deposited on glass substrates at a temperature of 90 ℃. The cadmium oxide film thickness was determined by the weight difference method at pH values (7.2, 8.2). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the size of the crystals increased with the increase in the solution (pH). While the UV-visible spectra of the fil
... Show MoreIn this work, the effect of annealing temperature on the electrical properties are studied of p-Se/ n-Si solar cell, which p-Se are deposit by DC planar magnetron sputtering technique on crystal silicon. The chamber was pumped down to 2×10−5 mbar before admitting the gas in. The gas was Ar. The sputtering pressure varied within the range of 4x10-1 - 8x10-2mbar by adjusting the pumping speed through the opening control of throttle valve. The electrical properties are included the C-V and I-V measurements. From C-V measurements, the Vbi are calculated while from I-V measurements, the efficiency of solar cell is calculated.
Abstract: Tin oxide thin films were deposited by direct current (DC) reactive sputtering at gas pressures of 0.015 mbar – 0.15 mbar. The crystalline structure and surface morphology of the prepared SnO2 films were introduced by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). These films showed preferred orientation in the (110) plane. Due to AFM micrographs, the grain size increased non-uniformly as the working gas pressure increased.
In this research, we studied the structural and optical properties of In2O3 films which prepared by chemical spray pyrolysis method on the glass substrate heated 400 . The effect of annealing temperature 100 for one hour on theses properties are studied. The result of Xray diffraction showed the prepared films were polycrystalline and orientation was (222) before and after annealing, optical properties study for prepared films by using (UV-VIS-NIR) spectrophotometer in the wave length range (300-1100)nm, We found the transmission increases after annealing to 90%. Sensitivity measurement of In2O3 films for gas (CO) and optical detector showed that after annealing at temperature 100 .