Journal on Photonics and Spintronics Vol2 No2 May 2013 ISSN 2324 - 8572 (Print) 19

Structural and Optical Characterization of ZnO

thin films by Sol- Gel Method

N. Nagarani, Department of Physics SMGCW and V. Vasu, School of Physics, MKU

 II. EXPERIMENTAL
Abstract— In this work the effects of annealing temperature on
structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films were discussed
A. Preparation
in detail. ZnO thin films have been prepared on to glass substrate ZnO thin films were deposited by Sol- gel Spin coating
by spin coating method. Zinc acetate dihydrate, isoprophyl method on to glass substrates. Zinc acetate dehydrate
alcohol and diethanolamine were used as starting material, isopropanol and Diethonolamine (DEA) were used as a starting
solvent and stabilizer respectively. The prepared films were material, solvent and stablizer respectively. The molar ratio of
annealed at different temperature from 350 ºC to 550ºC. The DEA to Zinc acetate dehydrate was maintained at 1.0 and the
crystal structure and orientation of the films were investigated by
concentration of Zinc acetate was 0.5M.
using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The Scherrer formula was used to
calculate the grain size of the films.From UV spectra the optical Zinc acetate dehydrate was first dissolved in a mixture of
energy band gap was evaluated (3.27 eV-3.31eV). The surface isopropanol and DEA at room temperature. The solution was
morphology of the film was analysed by Scanning Electron stirred at 60°C for l hr to yield a clear homogeneous solution
Microscope (SEM). which served as the precursor solution. The precursor solution
was dropped on to glass substrates which were rotated at 3000
Index Terms— ZnO thin films, sol-gel, structure, optical rpm for 30s. After they were deposited by spin coating, the
properties. films were preheated at 200°C for 10 minutes to evaporate the
solvent and to remove organic residuals. The procedure from
I. INTRODUCTION coating to drying was repeated several times. The films were
then annealed at different temperatures from 350°C - 550°C for
l hr.
ZnO thin film is a n type semiconducting material with a
wide direct band gap energy of 3.36 eV [1].Due to its large
exciton binding energy of about 60 meV they can be used
The orientation and structural parameters of the films were
determined by Xray diffractometer. The film thickness was
measured by Thickness profilometer. The surface morphology
as transparent electrodes in displays and metal oxide of the film was analysed by scanning Electron microscope
semiconductor in optoelectronic devices. ZnO is an excellent (SEM). Optical transmittance and band gap energy were
piezoelectric materials mainly used in surface accuostic waves estimated using UV-Vis. Spectra.
components and piezoelectric devices. According to the
preparation of ZnO thin films already various preparation
techniques are available in literature such as spray pyrolysis
[2,3],chemical vapour deposition [4], sputtering [5] pulsed III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
laser deposition [6], Sol-gel method [7,8] etc. Among these A. Crystal structure of ZnO thin film.
techniques Sol-gel spin coating is one of the simple methods,
because this technique has distinct advantages such as easy The crystal structure and orientation of the ZnO thin films
control of chemical composition, low cost and lower were investigated by Xray diffractometer. Fig 1 shows the
crystallization temperature..In this work the effect of different XRD spectra of ZnO thin films annealed at different
annealing temperature on structural, morphological and optical temperature. Diffraction peaks belonging to (100) (002) and
properties of ZnO this films were reported. (101) planes were observed in all the ZnO thin films. The XRD
patterns of all the samples indicated the enhanced intensities for
the peaks corresponding to (101) plane, indicating preferential
orientation along C-axis and. shows that the films are wurtzite
structure The presence of prominent peaks shows the film is
polycrystalline in nature.
N. Nagarani, is with Department of Physics, Sri Meenakshi Government
College for Women, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India (e-mail:
[email protected]).
V. Vasu, is with School of Physics, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai,
Tamilnadu, India (e-mail: [email protected]).
Journal on Photonics and Spintronics Vol2 No2 May 2013 ISSN 2324 - 8572 (Print) 20

which agrees with the JCPDS standard data belongs to ZnO

thin film annealed at 550°C.
The Zn – O – bond length L is given by [13]


L  (a 2 /3)  (1/2 - u) 2 c 2 1/2
, (3)

where the u parameter in the wurtzite structure is given by

u  (a 2 /3c 2 )  0.25, (4)

and related to a/c ratio. The Zn-O bond lengths are given in
Table 1.

B. Surface Morphology
0 0 0
Fig.1. XRD pattern of ZnO thin film annealed at (a) 350 C (b) 450 C (c) 550 C.
The surface morphology of the ZnO film was analysed by
Scanning Electron microscope (SEM). Figure 2, shows the
The Full width at half maximum (FMHM) of ZnO thin films SEM image of the ZnO thin films on glass substrate annealed at
for (101) plane are given in Table1, FMHM of thin film
decreases with increasing annealing temperature which can be
attributed to the coalescences of grains at higher annealing
temperature [9].
The grain size D was calculated using Scherrer´s formula
[10].

D  0.94 /cos, (1)

where  is the wavelength of the X ray radiation, θ is the

Bragg’s angle of the peak and  is FWHM.
The dislocation density which represents the amount of defect
in the film was determined from the formula given below [11]

  (1/D 2 ), (2)
550°C. In general the film is homogeneous and continuous.
These values are given in Table.1.
It was observed that the grain size increases gradually from Fig. 2. SEM image of ZnO thin film annealed at 5500C.
13 to 26nm with increase of annealing temperature. The larger
D and smaller FMHM values indicate better crystallization.
The dislocation density decreases with increasing annealing C. Optical Properties
temperature which may be due to decrease in concentration of
The optical transmittance and absorption spectra of ZnO thin
lattice imperfections.
films in the UV Visible Wave length range are presented in
TABLE I
Figure 3, and Figure 4, respectively.
STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS OF ZnO THIN FILMS

Annealing FWHM D Dislocation a/c L[Aº]

temperature [nm] Density (δ)
[nm]-2
350ºC .649 12.9 .0059 .625 1.983
450ºC .400 20.9 .0021 .625 1.982
550ºC .311 25.6 .0015 .623 1.979

Lattice constants a and c are calculated by using well

known analytical method [12]. The a/c ratios for the thin films
are given in the Table 1. It can be seen that the best ratio a/c
Journal on Photonics and Spintronics Vol2 No2 May 2013 ISSN 2324 - 8572 (Print) 21

Fig. 5 Plot of  v) 2 , Vs hv curves of ZnO thin films annealed at different

Fig. 3. Optical transmittance spectra of ZnO thin films annealed at different temperature.
annealing temperatures.

IV. CONCLUSION
The effect of different annealing temperature on structural,
morphological and optical properties of ZnO thin films has
been studied. The XRD spectrum shows that the films are
wurtzite structure. The grain size of the crystallites was found
to be in the range of 13-26nm.The surface morphology of the
film is homogeneous and continuous. The films showed high
transparency (>90%) in the visible region. When the annealing
temperature was increased above 450°C, transmittance was
decreased. This may be due to diffusion of impurity ions from
the sodalime glass. The band gap of the films by various
annealing temperature were from 3.26 to 3.30.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author thanks the University Grant Commission for doing
Fig. 4. Optical absorption spectra of ZnO thin film at different annealing
the research work under Faculty development program.
temperatures.

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