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Effect of solvent volume on the physical properties of sprayed fluorine‐doped zinc oxide thin films
Author(s) -
Muruganantham G.,
Ravichandran K.,
Saravanakumar K.,
Swaminathan K.,
Begum N. Jabena,
Sakthivel B.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
crystal research and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.377
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1521-4079
pISSN - 0232-1300
DOI - 10.1002/crat.201100527
Subject(s) - wurtzite crystal structure , solvent , scanning electron microscope , zinc , volume (thermodynamics) , fluorine , surface area to volume ratio , oxide , analytical chemistry (journal) , doping , grain size , chemistry , materials science , thin film , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , composite material , organic chemistry , thermodynamics , physics , optoelectronics , engineering
Fluorine‐doped zinc oxide (FZO) films were deposited from aged starting solutions having different solvent volumes (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 ml) using a simplified spray pyrolysis technique. The electrical studies showed that the resistivity is minimum (4.68 × 10 –2 Ω cm) for lowest solvent volume (10 ml) and the value progressively increased with the increase in the solvent volume indicating that the fluorine incorporation increases with solvent volume. The systematic study clearly showed that the spray flux rate plays a crucial role in determining the electrical, optical, surface and structural properties of the FZO films. The optical transparency is found to be gradually increased (from 85 to 95%) as the volume of the solvent increases. The scanning electron microscope images depicted that the decrease in the spray flux rate caused an enhancement in the grain size. The X‐ray diffraction profile clearly showed that all the films have preferential orientation along the (002) plane with hexagonal wurtzite structure. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)