Journal on Photonics and Spintronics Vol2 No2 May 2013 ISSN 2324 - 8572 (Print) 19

Abstract In this work the effects of annealing temperature on

structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films were discussed
in detail. ZnO thin films have been prepared on to glass substrate
by spin coating method. Zinc acetate dihydrate, isoprophyl
alcohol and diethanolamine were used as starting material,
solvent and stabilizer respectively. The prepared films were
annealed at different temperature from 350

C to 550 C. The
crystal structure and orientation of the films were investigated by
using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The Scherrer formula was used to
calculate the grain size of the films.From UV spectra the optical
energy band gap was evaluated (3.27 eV-3.31eV). The surface
morphology of the film was analysed by Scanning Electron
Microscope (SEM).

Index Terms ZnO thin films, sol-gel, structure, optical
properties.
I. INTRODUCTION
nO thin film is a n type semiconducting material with a
wide direct band gap energy of 3.36 eV [1].Due to its large
exciton binding energy of about 60 meV they can be used
as transparent electrodes in displays and metal oxide
semiconductor in optoelectronic devices. ZnO is an excellent
piezoelectric materials mainly used in surface accuostic waves
components and piezoelectric devices. According to the
preparation of ZnO thin films already various preparation
techniques are available in literature such as spray pyrolysis
[2,3],chemical vapour deposition [4], sputtering [5] pulsed
laser deposition [6], Sol-gel method [7,8] etc. Among these
techniques Sol-gel spin coating is one of the simple methods,
because this technique has distinct advantages such as easy
control of chemical composition, low cost and lower
crystallization temperature..In this work the effect of different
annealing temperature on structural, morphological and optical
properties of ZnO this films were reported.

N. Nagarani, is with Department of Physics, Sri Meenakshi Government
College for Women, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India (e-mail:
nagarani1966@gmail.com).
V. Vasu, is with School of Physics, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai,
Tamilnadu, India (e-mail: vasumku@gmail.com).

II. EXPERIMENTAL
A. Preparation
ZnO thin films were deposited by Sol- gel Spin coating
method on to glass substrates. Zinc acetate dehydrate
isopropanol and Diethonolamine (DEA) were used as a starting
material, solvent and stablizer respectively. The molar ratio of
DEA to Zinc acetate dehydrate was maintained at 1.0 and the
concentration of Zinc acetate was 0.5M.
Zinc acetate dehydrate was first dissolved in a mixture of
isopropanol and DEA at room temperature. The solution was
stirred at 60C for l hr to yield a clear homogeneous solution
which served as the precursor solution. The precursor solution
was dropped on to glass substrates which were rotated at 3000
rpm for 30s. After they were deposited by spin coating, the
films were preheated at 200C for 10 minutes to evaporate the
solvent and to remove organic residuals. The procedure from
coating to drying was repeated several times. The films were
then annealed at different temperatures from 350C - 550C for
l hr.
The orientation and structural parameters of the films were
determined by Xray diffractometer. The film thickness was
measured by Thickness profilometer. The surface morphology
of the film was analysed by scanning Electron microscope
(SEM). Optical transmittance and band gap energy were
estimated using UV-Vis. Spectra.

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Crystal structure of ZnO thin film.

The crystal structure and orientation of the ZnO thin films
were investigated by Xray diffractometer. Fig 1 shows the
XRD spectra of ZnO thin films annealed at different
temperature. Diffraction peaks belonging to (100) (002) and
(101) planes were observed in all the ZnO thin films. The XRD
patterns of all the samples indicated the enhanced intensities for
the peaks corresponding to (101) plane, indicating preferential
orientation along C-axis and. shows that the films are wurtzite
structure The presence of prominent peaks shows the film is
polycrystalline in nature.




Structural and Optical Characterization of ZnO
thin films by Sol- Gel Method

N. Nagarani, Department of Physics SMGCW and V. Vasu, School of Physics, MKU
Z
Journal on Photonics and Spintronics Vol2 No2 May 2013 ISSN 2324 - 8572 (Print) 20

















Fig.1. XRD pattern of ZnO thin film annealed at (a) 350
0
C (b) 450
0
C (c) 550
0
C.

The Full width at half maximum (FMHM) of ZnO thin films
for (101) plane are given in Table1, FMHM of thin film
decreases with increasing annealing temperature which can be
attributed to the coalescences of grains at higher annealing
temperature [9].
The grain size D was calculated using Scherrers formula
[10].

) 1 ( , cos / 0.94 D u | =

where
,
is the wavelength of the X ray radiation, is the
Braggs angle of the peak and
|,
is FWHM.
The dislocation density which represents the amount of defect
in the film was determined from the formula given below [11]

) 2 ( ), (1/D
2
= o

These values are given in Table.1.
It was observed that the grain size increases gradually from
13 to 26nm with increase of annealing temperature. The larger
D and smaller FMHM values indicate better crystallization.
The dislocation density decreases with increasing annealing
temperature which may be due to decrease in concentration of
lattice imperfections.

TABLE I
STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS OF ZnO THIN FILMS

Annealing
temperature
FWHM D
[nm]
Dislocation
Density ()
[nm]
-2

a/c L[A]
350C .649 12.9 .0059
.625
1.983
450C .400 20.9 .0021 .625 1.982
550C .311 25.6 .0015 .623 1.979

Lattice constants a and c are calculated by using well
known analytical method [12]. The a/c ratios for the thin films
are given in the Table 1. It can be seen that the best ratio a/c
which agrees with the JCPDS standard data belongs to ZnO
thin film annealed at 550 C.
The Zn O bond length L is given by [13]

| | ) 3 ( , c u) - (1/2 /3) (a L
1/2
2 2 2
+ =

where the u parameter in the wurtzite structure is given by

) 4 ( 0.25, ) /3c (a u
2 2
+ =
(4)
and related to a/c ratio. The Zn-O bond lengths are given in
Table 1.

B. Surface Morphology
The surface morphology of the ZnO film was analysed by
Scanning Electron microscope (SEM). Figure 2, shows the
SEM image of the ZnO thin films on glass substrate annealed at
550C. In general the film is homogeneous and continuous.

Fig. 2. SEM image of ZnO thin film annealed at 550
0
C.


C. Optical Properties
The optical transmittance and absorption spectra of ZnO thin
films in the UV Visible Wave length range are presented in
Figure 3, and Figure 4, respectively.


Journal on Photonics and Spintronics Vol2 No2 May 2013 ISSN 2324 - 8572 (Print) 21



Fig. 3. Optical transmittance spectra of ZnO thin films annealed at different
annealing temperatures.

















Fig. 4. Optical absorption spectra of ZnO thin film at different annealing
temperatures.

The band gap of the films was determined from the Taucs
plots of , v)
2
(o versus photon energy as shown in Fig. 5. The
optical band gap was found to decrease from 3.30 to 3.26 eV.
The decrease in band gap at higher annealing temperature may
be due to the removal of oxygen vacancies. The removal of
oxygen vacancies reduces the carrier density and hence the
band gap reduces, which may be attributed to Burstein-Mott
shift. [14].


Fig. 5 Plot of , v)
2
(o Vs hv curves of ZnO thin films annealed at different
temperature.

IV. CONCLUSION
The effect of different annealing temperature on structural,
morphological and optical properties of ZnO thin films has
been studied. The XRD spectrum shows that the films are
wurtzite structure. The grain size of the crystallites was found
to be in the range of 13-26nm.The surface morphology of the
film is homogeneous and continuous. The films showed high
transparency (>90%) in the visible region. When the annealing
temperature was increased above 450C, transmittance was
decreased. This may be due to diffusion of impurity ions from
the sodalime glass. The band gap of the films by various
annealing temperature were from 3.26 to 3.30.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author thanks the University Grant Commission for doing
the research work under Faculty development program.

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