Role of ZnO content on the structural, morphology and optical properties of (NiO)1-x (ZnO) x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition technique

Abstract

(NiO) 1-x (ZnO) x compounds were prepared with different composition ratios. The compounds were obtained by mixing Nickle oxide and zinc oxide in the appropriate ratio and sintered at 1000°C for six hours. Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method which is simple and inexpensive method was used to deposit (NiO) 1-x (ZnO) x thin films on glass substrate at ambient temperature. Structural, optical and properties were investigated. The structures investigation obtained from x-ray diffraction showed that the prepared of compound as well as thin films have polycrystalline structure where the diffraction peaks were identical with the cubic NiO and hexagonal ZnO for x=0 and 1.0 while the structure of the residual x values was identical with the both phases. The average values of the crystallite size increases from 29.3 nm to 32.4 nm when x increases from 0 to 1.0. Thickness interferometry measurement showed that thickness of the prepared thin films was ≈150 nm. The optical absorbance and transmittance spectrum provided from UV-spectrophotometer were used to estimate the optical parameters like optical energy gap Eg, refractive index, extinction coefficient and real and imaginary dielectric constants. The data showed that the optical energy gap as well as the optical constants decreases with the increasing of ZnO content in the prepared thin films.