Nanocrystalline Mn and Fe Doped ZnO Thin Films Prepared Using SILAR Method for Dilute Magnetic Semiconductor Application

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a versatile material of compound semiconductors with excellent proper‐ ties and extensive applications in electronics, optoelectronics, sensors, and catalyses (Das et al, 2007). ZnO thin films have attracted considerable attention because they can be tailored to possess high electrical conductivity, high infrared reflectance and high visible transmit‐ tance by different coating technique (Ryu et al, 2000). Some of the remarkable properties of ZnO are its wide direct-band gap of 3.37 eV, the binding energy of the exciton of ZnO (60 meV) which makes it an excellent material for excitonic devices (Wang et al, 2003). Other favourable aspects of ZnO include its broad chemistry leading to many opportunities for wet chemical etching, low power threshold for optical pumping, radiation hardness and bio‐ compatibility. Together, these properties of ZnO make it an ideal candidate for a variety of devices ranging from sensors through to ultra-violet laser devices and nanotechnology based devices such as displays. As fervent research into ZnO continues, difficulties such as the fabrication of p-type ZnO that have so far stated that the development of devices had overcome (Yang etal, 2008). Mitra et al (1998) has prepared Zinc Oxide thin films using chemical deposition technique. The structural, morphological properties of the prepared films are characterized using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope. They have used Zn salts as precursor and successfully synthesized ZnO films. The growth of highly textured Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films with a preferred (101) orientation has been prepared by