Optical Properties of Nano-Crystalline Zirconia Thin Films Prepared at Different Post-Oxidation Annealing Times

Abstract

The zirconia (ZrO2) is one of the transition-metal oxides with most excellent optical properties which thus attracts great attention in optical engineering. A variety of methods were used for deposition of ZrO2 thin films on different substrates. In the present work, homogenous, transparent nanocrystalline zirconia thin films were grown by thermal oxidation of zirconium (Zr) thin films deposited on quartz substrate using DC magnetron sputtering technique. The objective of this study is to reveal the effect of thermal oxidation time on structural and optical properties of deposited films. The XRD results revealed the formation of single phase ZrO2 with tetragonal structure in the films at different thermal oxidation times. The optical constant of ZrO2 thin films was calculated from the UV-visible transmission spectra. It was found that the increase of thermal oxidation time leads to the increase of transmittance and optical band gap energy of the films. The AFM results showed that thermal oxidation time influences the surface morphology of the films.

Nanocrystalline Nickel Oxide (NiO) Thin Films Grown on Quartz Substrates: Influence Of Annealing Temperatures

“…According to data from Table I we can observe that the average crystallite size had increased with increase of annealing temperature, which reveals a fine nanocrystalline grain structure. Similar results, showing influence of annealing, were also obtained in [9][10][11] for silver, molybdenum oxide and zirconium oxide thin films. As the annealing temperature was increased the XRD peaks became sharper, which was due to the increase of particle size and due to the enhancement of the crystallinity.…”

Structural, Morphological and Optical Properties of Nanostructured ZrO2 Films Obtained by an Electrochemical Process at Different Deposition Temperatures

“…The optical spectroscopy results demonstrated that increased doses of UV-A radiation improved the quality of films, in comparison with heat-treated films. In comparison with most of the above cited papers [5,17,[32][33][34], we observed a greater size of grains and greater value in film roughness, leading to greater values in diffuse and haze ratio spectra. In any case, all these features depend on the applied deposition method, as well as the variety and specificity of working conditions.…”

“…This is explained by the thickness decreasing from 433 nm to 385 nm. In [33], homogenous and transparent nanocrystalline zirconia layers deposited on quartz substrates were produced by thermal oxidation using DC magnetron-sputtering techniques. It is shown that by increasing the annealing time from 60 to 240 min, the grains combine and form larger grains, in this manner changing the surface morphology from a pyramidal to cluster-type surface.…”

Synthesis of Nickel-Doped TiO2 Thin Films and Their Structural and Optical Properties at Different Annealing Temperatures

“…We can observe that the surface morphology of films was highly influenced by O 2 /Ar ratio, dopants and annealing temperatures [3,7,[11][12][13][14].…”