Impact of molarity on the structural, morphological and optical properties of CeO2 thin films prepared by spray pyrolysis technique

Abstract

CeO2 thin films are deposited on glass substrate by spray pyrolysis technique (SPT) at 623 K using different molar concentration of cerium chloride precursor solution. The structural, morphological and optical properties of films were investigated by a set of characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV-VIS-IR. The estimation of crystallite size is 80-120 nm, which is confirmed by Scherrer formulae from XRD pattern. XRD analysis shows that the film has cubic fluorite phase with orientation along (111) for all molarity. The optical energy gap decreased with the increase of crystallite size (98-120 nm) due to the size effect.