Preparation and Characterization of Nanostructured CuO Thin Films using Sol-gel Dip Coating

Nanostructured CuO thin films were deposited onto quartz substrates by sol-gel dip coating technique. The precursor solution was prepared by dissolving copper acetate powder into isopropanol with molarity of 0.25M. Preheating and annealing temperature were fixed at 250 degrees C and 600 degrees C respectively. This study focused on various film thicknesses by varying the frequent number of deposited layers. The effect of thickness on electrical, surface morphology and optical properties of CuO thin film were studied. The surface morphology was examined using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), surface profiler for thickness measurement, optical properties of CuO thin film were characterized by using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-VIS) for transmittance and absorbance, and the electrical property was examined by using two point probes method. The films were found to be denser at higher film thickness due to lesser porous observed on the surface. The thickness of these CuO thin films varied from 87.14-253.58 nm and the direct band gap energy was observed in between 1.9 to 2.35 eV. Lowest resistivity was found for sample with a thickness of 253.58 nm.