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Effect of annealing temperature on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films prepared by sol–gel method

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Abstract

In this work, ZnO thin films were synthesized by sol–gel method on glass substrates followed by calcinations on different temperatures. The effect of annealing temperature on the structure and optical properties of the films was studied. The structural characteristics of the samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscope. The optical properties were studied by a UV-visible spectrophotometer. The results show that all the prepared ZnO thin films have a high preferential oriented c-axis orientation with compact hexagonal wurtzite structure. With the increasing annealing temperature (mse.ufl.edu), the intensity of (002) peak, particle size, surface RMS roughness, and absorbance of the ZnO thin films were increased as well. On the contrary, the transmittance and optical band gaps were decreased.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 20873118), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant NCET-08-0665), the Program for Science & Technology Innovation Talents in Universities of Henan Province (2008 HASTIT016), Henan Province Science and Technology Key Project (Grant No. 082102230036), Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, China (No. 97A158), Innovation Scientists and Technicians Troop Construction Projects of Henan Province (Grant No. 10410051001).

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Correspondence to Pingyu Zhang.

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Zhang, Y., Fa, W., Yang, F. et al. Effect of annealing temperature on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films prepared by sol–gel method. Ionics 16, 815–820 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-010-0468-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-010-0468-4

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