title: Preparation, microstructure and optical absorption behaviour of NiO thin films.
abstract: Nickel oxide thin films have been prepared by spin coating on glass, silicon(1ll) and quartz substrate using a solution of nickel acetate tetrahydrate in 2-methoxyethanol and mono-ethanolamine and subsequent annealing at 300-600 degrees C for 2 h in air. These films have been characterized with regard to phase, microstructure and optical absorption using X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy and UV-visible spectrophotometry, respectively. It is shown that NiO thin films have polycrystalline nature and possess an f.c.c. (NaCl-type) structure with lattice parameter varying with annealing temperature (T) and solution molarity; typical value being a = 4.186 A with T = 500 degrees C and molarity 0.5 M. The microstructure clearly reveals the formation of ellipsoids with average projected major and minor diameters as approximately 58 and approximately 38 nm, respectively and nano-rods of average diameter approximately 12 nm with aspect ratio of approximately 5.2. On the other hand, thin films formed by dip coating with the same solution contain spherical particles of average diameter approximately 28 nm. NiO thin films exhibit (i) high optical transmittance (80-95%) in the wave length range of 400-800 nm, (ii) sharp absorption in the interval 300-400 nm like that of semiconductor/insulator, (iii) decrease of energy band gap, E(g) (value lies in the range 3.66-3.83 eV; bulk value being 3.55 eV) with increase of annealing temperature and molarity both. The higher values of band gap have been attributed to the reduced average size of the crystallites.
authors.affiliation: Materials Science Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India.
authors.forename: Amit Kumar
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: Subhash
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thota
authors.forename: Jitendra
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kumar