Comparative study for seed layer solvent effects on structural and optical properties of MgZnO thin films deposited by chemical bath deposition technique

Abstract

C-axis oriented Magnesium doped Zinc Oxide (MgZnO) thin films are promising candidates for variety of applications especially optoelectronic devices. In this work, the effects of seeding solvents on structural and optical properties of MgZnO films were analyzed. The comparison was performed by varying the seed layer solvent i.e. 2-Methoxyethanol, 2-Propanol, Ethanol and Methanol. MgZnO thin films were synthesized on different seed layered glass substrates using Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) method. The XRD results revealed the hexagonal wurtzite structure for all samples. However, the film with seed layer 2-Methoxyethanol solvent had preferred c-axis orientation and better crystallanity. For 2-Methoxyethanol solvent based seed layer: the morphological study showed wrinkled free, unfractured and highly aligned MgZnO nanorods grown perpendicular to the substrate. Energy dispersive x-ray (EDS) spectroscopy confirmed the presence of magnesium in ZnO film. Highest average transmittance of 80% and band gap value of 3.3 eV was recorded through UV-vis spectroscopy. The optical constants (refractive index and extinction coefficient) were determined by reflectance and absorbance data. Furthermore complex dielectric constant and energy loss functions were estimated.

Various Applications of ZnO Thin Films Obtained by Chemical Routes in the Last Decade

“…Chemical Bath Deposition is a process used to deposit thin films onto a substrate which involves the use of a chemical solution that contains precursors for the desired material [ 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 ]. The substrate is immersed in the solution and a reaction occurs at the surface of the substrate, resulting in the deposition of a thin film.…”

Dielectric Metasurface from Solution‐Phase Epitaxy of ZnO Nanorods for Subtractive Color Filter Application

“…We observe that the fitted n value of the ZnO obtained by SPE changes from 2.65 at 400 nm to 1.83 at 800 nm, which is in accordance with the values reported in the literature. [41,42] In addition, unlike the ZnO film deposited by ALD, the ZnO film deposited by SPE exhibits a rather high extinction coefficient of 0.5 that decreases rapidly to a near-zero value in the wavelength range 400-450 nm. Such a behavior is commonly associated with lattice defects.…”

Fabrication of UV ZnO NRS photodetector based on seeded silicon substrate via the drop-casting technique

“…Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a significant II–VI group semiconductor with a direct bandgap of approximately 3.37 eV (Baig et al , 2020), which is beneficial for photonic applications (Shabannia, 2015). Furthermore, the large-binding energy of 60 meV (Baig et al , 2020) makes it an active excitonic emission even at room temperature (Shabannia, 2015). Well-aligned ZnO nanorods (NRs) demonstrated excellent performance with great visible transmittance.…”

“…Well-aligned ZnO nanorods (NRs) demonstrated excellent performance with great visible transmittance. As a result, high-quality c -axis synthesis of ZnO thin films is supposed to be necessary for potential applications in optoelectronic devices (Baig et al , 2020). One-dimensional ZnO semiconducting nanostructures such as nanowires and nanorods are regarded to be essential multipurpose basic building blocks for the manufacture of various potential applications in electronics and optoelectronics devices such as light-emitting diodes, photodetectors and solar cells (Abdulrahman et al , 2021; Rusli et al , 2012; Ji et al , 2009), ZnO NRs has exhibited many advantages including a larger surface area ratio (Chu et al , 2021), good sensitivity to absorb oxygen on the surface, high quantum efficiency and slow electron/hole recombination rate (Ko et al , 2015; Aziz et al , 2014).…”

“…Numerous techniques are used to achieve controlled morphological growth for ZnO nanorod array production, which include chemical vapour deposition, electrochemical deposition and thermal evaporation (Baig et al , 2020; Shabannia, 2015) and hydrothermal deposition (Kim and Leem, 2021; Chu et al , 2022). The advantages of ZnO hydrothermal growth over other synthesis methods have been discussed many times in the literature, like low deposition temperature and the fact it does not require any hard fabrication method of substrates (Mohammad et al , 2015).…”