Breaking Boundaries in LED Technology: Exploring the Revolutionary Diode Characteristics of Screen Printed (TiO2)1−x (CuO)x Thick Films

Abstract

A thick TiO2-CuO composite film is deposited on a Si substrate by a low-cost screen printing method. Both anatase and CuO-doped TiO2 are characterized for diode applications. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) confirms that the composite film exists as an anatase phase of TiO2 and a monoclinic phase of CuO with a maximum diffraction of (101) plane. SEM images depict the less severe agglomeration of particles for the doped TiO2 as compared to the anatase TiO2. The UV–visible spectra reveal a direct band gap shift of 3.35 eV (pure TiO2) to 3.26 eV (doped TiO2). From the PL study, the blue shaded emission is perfectly derived for anatase TiO2 while the color is seen to change to the white zone supporting TiO2-CuO composite formation as depicted by the CIE diagram. The diode parameters such as ideality factor (n) and barrier height (Φb) are calculated with the help of I–V characteristics. This only reported novel effort on screen-printed TiO2-CuO thick film may help in manufacturing possible LEDs for optoelectronic applications.