Optical Properties of Cu-Doped ZnO Films Prepared by Cu Solution Coating

This work demonstrates the fabrication of Cu-doped ZnO films by Cu solution coating method. Cu ink was spin coated on ZnO thin films prepared by e-beam deposition. After curing and annealing at high temperatures, structural, morphological and optical properties of the films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and spectrofluorometer, respectively. The XRD results showed that ZnO films formed polycrystalline with a hexagonal wurtzite structure, and the grain size increased with increasing the annealing temperature from 500 to 850 °C. The changes in lattice parameters were caused by grain size, strain, and residual stress. Morphological analysis have revealed that the Cu-doped ZnO film after annealing at 500 °C has flat surface with uniformly distributed grain size, which became porous after higher temperature annealing process. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and photoluminescence spectras have shown the presence of Zn, Cu, and O elements, and combined violet, blue, green and weak red emissions between 350 and 650 nm in the ZnO films, respectively.