Dependence of microstructure and optical properties on holding time and annealing temperature of BiFeO3thin film fabricated by chemical solution deposition (CSD)

Abstract

Bismuth ferrite oxide (BiFeO 3 ) thin film has been grown on a quartz substrate using the Chemical Solution Deposition (CSD) method. The deposition of BiFeO 3 thin film used holding time variations (30, 45 and 60 min) and annealing temperature (550 °C and 600 °C). The results of X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) characterization showed that the increase of holding time caused intensity to be higher. This indicates that increasing intensity will increase the crystallinity and crystallite size. High annealing temperature caused crystallinity and crystallite size of the BiFeO 3 thin film to increase. Characterization of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed that increasing holding time would decrease the grain size with the boundary between grains look clearer, homogeneous, and low porosity. Increasing annealing temperature caused an increase of the grain size in which it is difficult to determine the grain boundaries and high porosity. The characterization of UV–VIS showed that thickness affects to the absorbance and transmittance values of BiFeO 3 . In addition, low energy gap was obtained from the variation of holding time and annealing temperature about 2.5–2.8 eV.