Effect of post-annealing temperature on structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films grown on mica substrates using sol-gel spin-coating

Abstract

ZnO thin films were grown on flexible muscovite mica substrates using sol-gel spin-coating. The structural and optical properties of the sol-gel-derived ZnO thin films annealed at temperatures between 300 - 600 °C were investigated. The surface morphology of the ZnO thin films was found to depend slightly on the annealing temperature. In the photoluminescence spectra, the position of the near-band-edge (NBE) peak was shifted towards a lower energy by the post-annealing process, and the full width at half maximum (FWHM) values of the NBE peaks for the annealed ZnO thin films were significantly lower than those for the as-grown film. Defect-related deep-level peaks exhibiting green and red emissions were observed only for the annealed ZnO thin films. The Urbach energy and optical band gap of the films decreased with an increase in annealing temperatures up to 500 °C.