Abstract
Nano-silver oxide thin films with high sensitivity for NH3 gas were deposited on glass substrates by the chemical bath deposition technique. The preparations were made under different values of pH and deposition time at 70ᵒ C, using silver nitrate AgNO3 and triethanolamine. XRD analysis showed that all thin films werepolycrystalline with several peaks of silver oxides such as Ag2O, AgO and Ag3O4, with an average crystallite size that ranged between 31.7 nm and 45.8 nm, depending on the deposition parameters. Atomic force microscope (AFM) technique illustrated that the films were homogenous with different surface roughness and thegrain size ranged between 55.69 nm and 86.23 nm. The UV-Vis spectrophotometer showed that the optical direct energy gap ranged between 1.66 eV to 2.12 eV. The silver oxide thin film gives a high sensitivity of 70.12 for NH3 gas at 75°C operating temperature. This study shows that different types of silver oxides can beprepared by the CBD techniques, with the nanostructure to be used in gas sensors and optoelectronic applications.
Highlights
Silver oxides are semiconductors of a band gap that ranges between 1.2 and 3.4 eV [1], depending on the stoichiometries and deposition techniques
The rough film can be used in the gas sensors while the smooth film is used for example in the optoelectronic applications
The average crystallite size and average grain size measured by the XRD and Atomic force microscope (AFM), respectively, were in the nanometer range
Summary
Silver oxides are semiconductors of a band gap that ranges between 1.2 and 3.4 eV [1], depending on the stoichiometries and deposition techniques. The synthesis of silver oxide thin films can be achieved by various techniques [2, 14,15,16] Among these techniques is the chemical bath deposition method [3, 14], which is the simplest way to deposit nanometal oxides thin films. The structural, morphological and optical properties of the deposited films can be controlled by varying the deposition time, pH of the solution, and temperature of the bath. The chemical bath deposition method was used to deposit silver oxide thin films on a glass substrate at different pH and dipping time. The gas sensing of silver oxide films was calculated by measuring the change in electrical resistance toward 400 ppm NH3 gas at different working temperatures and pH solution values.
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