Effects of substrate on structural and morphological properties of ZnO nanostructure thin films
M. Caglar, Y. Caglar, S. Ilican, F. Yakuphanoglu, S. Aksoy
Anadolu University, TR
Keywords: ZnO, sol-gel spin coating, nanostructure thin films, structural properties
Abstract:ZnO nanostructured thin films were grown on Si, glass and ITO by the sol gel spin coating method in an aqueous solution that contained zinc acetate dehydrate, 2-methoxyethanol and monoethanolamine. The coating solution was dropped into substrate, which was rotated at 3000 rpm for 30 s using spin coater. After the spin coating process the film was dried at 300 oC for 10 min in a furnace. This coating/drying procedure was repeated for ten times, before the film was inserted into a tube furnace and annealed at 450 oC in air for 1 h. The nature of the substrate was found to have effect on the crystal structure, morphologies and optical properties of the resultant ZnO nanostructure. From the X-ray measurement results, it can be seen that the growth orientation of the resultant ZnO nanostructure deposited on various substrates were (002), but the highest intensity of (002) diffraction peak appeared in the samples deposited on Si substrate. SEM results showed the nanostructure had the most uniform size and the highest coverage density. According to these films, the XRD and SEM results all indicate that c-axis was the optimum orientation. The important changes in crystalline structure of the films were observed due to the substrate.