On single doping and co-doping of spray pyrolysed ZnO films: Structural, electrical and optical characterisation

In this paper we present studies on ZnO thin films (prepared using Chemical Spray pyrolysis (CSP) technique) doped in two different ways; in one set, ‘single doping’ using indium was done while in the second set, ‘co-doping’ using indium and fluorine was adopted. In the former case, effect of in-situ as well as ex-situ doping using In was analyzed. Structural (XRD studies), electrical (I–V measurements) and optical characterizations (through absorption, transmission and photoluminescence studies) of the films were done. XRD analysis showed that, for spray-deposited ZnO films, ex-situ doping using Indium resulted in preferred (0 0 2) plane orientation, while in-situ doping caused preferred orientation along (1 0 0), (0 0 2), (1 0 1) planes; however for higher percentage of in-situ doping, orientation of grains changed from (0 0 2) plane to (1 0 1) plane. The co-doped films had (0 0 2) and (1 0 1) planes. Lowest resistivity (2 × 10−3 Ω cm) was achieved for the films, doped with 1% Indium through in-situ method. Photoluminescence (PL) emissions of ex-situ doped and co-doped samples had two peaks; one was the ‘near band edge’ emission (NBE) and the other was the ‘blue–green’ emission. But interestingly the PL emission of in-situ doped samples exhibited only the ‘near band edge’ emission. Optical band gap of the films increased with doping percentage, in all cases of doping.