Abstract
KCl is usually used as the supporting electrolyte in electrochemical deposition of Zinc oxide materials. Besides the role of supporting electrolyte, it can also influence the morphology of the fabricated materials. In this work, ZnO and zinc hydroxide chloride hydrate (Zn5(OH)8Cl2•H2O) mixture with platelet-like morphology were electrochemically deposited directly on ITO-coated glass substrates at 65°C. The electrolyte was 0.1M Zn(NO3)2•6H2O with KCl concentration varied from 0 to 3.2M. It was found that only ZnO thin film was obtained when the concentration of KCl was below 0.02M. Plates structure appeared as the concentration of KCl increased to 0.04M. Plentiful plates were obtained when the concentration of KCl was 0.05M-0.2M. From the X-ray diffraction, it was confirmed that the plate films was the mixture of ZnO and Zn5(OH)8Cl2•H2O. The plates showed perfect single crystal structure confirmed by selected area electron diffraction. Zn and Zn5(OH)8Cl2•H2O were obtained when the concentration of KCl was above 0.8M.
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