Published on June 2019 | Material Science, Thin film

Room-temperature synthesis and optical properties of nanostructured Ba-Doped ZnO thin films

Zinc oxide films with and without barium-doping have been prepared by the SILAR technique at different concentrations (1 mol%, 3 mol%, 5 mol% and 7 mol%) of Ba content on glass slides. The effects of the concentration of barium doped zinc oxide (BaZnO) were characterized using x-ray difffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) techniques, ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) studies. The structural studies using XRD plots confirmed the polycrystalline nature of ZnO films. The Ba doped ZnO films deposited were found to have strong orientation at (002) lattice plane which exhibited polycrystalline hexagonal wurtzite structure. TEM and SAED results confirmed the morphological and structural properties of the films. The SEM showed that the grain size of the films increased as a result of increase in the concentration of barium doping. EDX results confirmed the elemental presence of the films. An increase in the Ba concentration showed a decrease in the optical band gap values between 3.41 eV and 3.19 eV. PL studies confirmed the presence of defects in the ZnO films.