Influence of nitrogen dopant source on the structural, photoluminescence and electrical properties of ZnO thin films deposited by pulsed spray pyrolysis. Issue 18 (15th December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: KaniAmuthan, B.; Vinoth, S.; Karthikeyan, Vaithinathan; Roy, Vellaisamy A.L.; Thilakan, P.
• Is Part Of: Ceramics international. Volume 45:Issue 18(2019)Part A
• Page Start: 24324
• Page End: 24330
• Publication Date: 2019-12-15
• Subjects: ZnO thin films -- N-doping -- Pulsed spray pyrolysis -- E-traps -- p-type conductivity; Ceramics -- Periodicals; Céramique industrielle -- Périodiques; Ceramics; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 666
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ceramint.2019.08.147
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0272-8842

Abstract

Abstract: The N-doped ZnO thin films have been deposited using pulsed spray pyrolysis from Zinc Acetate (ZA) precursor along with the N dopants of N2 carrier gas (N2 – series) and Ammonium Acetate (AA – series) on glass substrates at the optimized substrate temperature of 300 °C with different spraying pulse intervals. The X-ray powder diffraction studies confirmed the polycrystalline structures with the presence of mixed compressive and tensile strain along ' a' and 'c-axes' respectively for the N2 doped films and the presence of compressive strain alone along both 'a' and 'c-axes' for the AA doped films. The XPS analysis revealed that the N2 gas source led to the incorporation of elemental N into the film and the AA source led to the incorporation of both elemental and molecular N into the film. The Micro Raman Analysis confirmed the N-doping and its contributed carrier localization by exhibiting A1 (LO) and A1 (TO) modes. Photoluminescence studies exhibited the active band gap of ~3.19 eV with additional peaks related to hole traps at ~3 eV and electron traps at ~2.8 eV without exhibiting peaks correspond to oxygen vacancy defects. The Seebeck measurements confirmed the establishment of intrinsic p-type conductivity in both the cases at room temperature (RT) and the films deposited with pure elemental doping from N2 source found exhibiting better p-type conductivity than those films deposited using AA source.