Growth and Investigation of Annealing Effects on Ternary Cd_1-xMg_xO Nanocomposit Thin Films

Thin films of Cd_1-xMg_xO (CdMgO) (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) were investigated by depositing the films on glass substrates using the co-evaporation technique. The structural, surface morphological, optical, and electrical characteristics of these films were studied as a function of Mg content after annealing at 350 °C. The XRD analysis showed that the deposited films had an amorphous nature. The grain size of the films reduced as the Mg concentration increased, as evidenced by the surface morphology, and EDAX supported the existence of Mg content. It was observed that as the films were annealed, the transmittance of the CdMgO films saw an increase of up to 85%. The blue shift of the absorption edge was observed by the increase of Mg content, which was useful for enhancing the efficiency of solar cells. The optical band gap increased from 2.45 to 6.02 eV as the Mg content increased. With increased Mg content, the refractive index reduced from 2.49 to 1.735, and electrical resistivity increased from 535 Ω cm to 1.57 × 10⁶ Ω cm.