Formation of ZnO Nanoparticulate Thin Film: Sol-Gel Synthesis and Characterisation

Abstract

ZnO thin films have been prepared sol gel dip coating method using zinc acetate dehydrate (Zn(CH3COO)2·2H2O, Merck) as cation source, 2-methoxyethanol (C3H8O2, Merck) as solvent and monoethanolamine, MEA (C2H7NO, R&M) as sol stabilizer. Film deposition was performed by dip-coating technique at a fixed deposition rate on Corning 7740 glass substrate. The effect of sol concentration on the properties of the thin films is discussed. The effect of the sol concentration on produced ZnO films was found to be significant. X-ray analysis showed that thin films were preferentially orientated along the c-axis direction of the crystal. Besides, the films had a transparency of greater than 80% in the visible region for sol–gels with a zinc content of up to 0.8 M and exhibited absorption edges at ~375 nm.