In this study, the porous zinc oxide (ZnO) films were deposited on SnO2:F coated glass substrate by sol-gel technique with zinc acetate as precursor, ethanol as solvent, and diethanolamine as chelating agent. Two sets of ZnO films with equal number of coatings and the same film thicknesses were deposited with various zinc acetate concentrations. The surface morphology of the porous ZnO film strongly depends on the zinc acetate concentration. It was also revealed from the optical study that the dye absorption increases with an increase in the zinc acetate concentration. The ZnO film with 1.0mol∕l zinc acetate concentration has shown the best porous structure and maximum rms roughness value (187nm). The maximum photoelectric conversion efficiencies, 0.64% and 0.8%, were achieved for ZnO films with 1.0mol∕l of zinc acetate concentration in both sets of samples: equal number of coatings and the same film thicknesses, respectively.
An analysis is made of the sputter depth profiling of ultrathin silicon dioxide layers on silicon to evaluate the variation in the sputtering rate in the first few nanometers. Such changes in sputtering rate are important for the development of the analysis of nanoparticles. Cs+ ions are chosen as an example of a metal ion popular in secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) studies that provide excellent depth resolution. It is found that, if it is assumed that the signal is linear with oxygen content, the sputtering rate falls rapidly by a factor of 4.8, with an exponential decay near 1.2 nm when using 600 eV Cs+ ions at 60° incidence angle. The interface may be described by the integral of the response function of Dowsett et al. developed for SIMS depth profiling of delta layers with λu=0.5 nm, λd=0.7 nm, and σ=0.4 nm, showing the excellent depth resolution. However, if published data for the nonlinearity of the signal with oxygen content are used, the rapid change is still seen but with an initial sputtering rate that is reduced from the above 4.8 to 3.5 times that at equilibrium.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.