Studies on chemical bath deposited CuO thin films for solar cells application

CuO thin films were deposited onto glass substrates using Chemical bath deposition technique by varying the pH of the solution. Structural, optical and electrical properties of the synthesized films were studied as a function of the solution pH. X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy, UV–Vis spectroscopy and Hall effect measurements were used to explore the structure, morphology, optical and electrical properties of the films, respectively. All the films have exhibited orthorhombic structure with preferential orientation along the (111) plane. X-ray line profile analysis has been carried out to determine the microstructural parameters such as crystallite size, RMS microstrain, dislocation density and stacking fault probability. Morphological studies have revealed that the uniformity of the film surface, and the average particle size was found to increase with solution pH. Optical parameters such as band gap, refractive index, extinction coefficient, real and imaginary dielectric constants and optical conductivity have been estimated from optical absorption measurements. Carrier concentration and mobility of charge carriers estimated from the Hall measurement were found to be 7.43 × 1013 cm−3 and 11.84 cm2 V−1 s−1 respectively for CuO films prepared at solution pH 11.0.