Characterization and study of antibacterial activity of spray pyrolysed ZnO:Al thin films

C Manoharan,M Bououdina,G Pavithra,P Dhamodharan,S Dhanapandian

doi:10.1007/s13204-015-0493-8

C Manoharan, M Bououdina + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-015-0493-8

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Journal: Applied nanoscience	Publication Date: Aug 21, 2015
Citations: 75	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Annamalai University, University of Bahrain

Abstract

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) thin films were deposited onto glass substrates using spray pyrolysis technique with the substrate temperature of 400 °C. X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the films were polycrystalline with hexagonal wurtzite structure preferentially oriented along (002) direction. Surface morphology of the films obtained by scanning electron microscopy showed that the grains were of nanoscale size with porous nature for 6 at.% of Al. Atomic force microscopy observations revealed that the particles size and surface roughness of the films decreased with Al-doping. Optical measurements indicated that ZnO:Al (6 at.%) exhibited a band gap of 3.11 eV, which is lower than that of pure ZnO film, i.e. 3.42 eV. Photoluminescence analysis showed weak NBE emission at 396 nm for Al-doped films. The low resistivity, high hall mobility and carrier concentration values were obtained at a doping ratio of 6 at.% of Al. The effective incorporation of 6 at.% of Al into ZnO lattice by occupying Zn sites yielded a well-pronounced antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus.

Highlights

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are considered as important basic material for applications in solar cells and optoelectronic devices because of their wide band gap (3.2 eV), low resistivity, high transparency in the visible and near-infrared region, high light trapping characteristics and a high refractive index
The enhancement of PL intensity by doping with 1 at.% of Al can be attributed to the improvement of the crystallinity as observed from X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and to the charge compensation due to the presence of Al (Anandhi et al 2013).The increase in the intensity of near-band-edge emission (NBE) emission observed for pure zinc oxide (ZnO) and 1 at.% Al-doped ZnO films originates from lesser defects or/and preferred orientation along (002) (Chen et al 2009)
Pure and Al-doped ZnO films were deposited by spray pyrolysis technique using ZnAcAc and AlCl3 as precursor solution

Summary

Introduction

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) are considered as important basic material for applications in solar cells and optoelectronic devices because of their wide band gap (3.2 eV), low resistivity, high transparency in the visible and near-infrared region, high light trapping characteristics and a high refractive index. The low resistivity, high hall mobility and carrier concentration values were obtained at a doping ratio of 6 at.% of Al. The effective incorporation of 6 at.% of Al into ZnO lattice by occupying Zn sites yielded a well-pronounced antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus.

Results

Conclusion