Optical Properties of NiO Thin Films: A Potential Material for Optoelectronic Devices

Abstract

The influence of substrate temperature on the UV-Visible-near-IR optical properties, namely the band gap, the Urbach energy and the refractive index of NiO thin films deposited by RF sputtering has been investigated. The optical band gap of thin films showed the blue-shift in the transmission spectra with increase in the substrate temperature which is related to variation in carrier concentration of the deposited films. Urbach energy (EU) values indicate that the films deposited at 400 oC substrate temperature show least structural disorder. The refractive index of the films is found to decrease continuously with increase in the substrate temperature at all photon energies in the visible and near-IR region, and is attributed to the decreasing packing density of the films. Introduction