Bandgap engineering of rare earth element doped nanostructured cadmium oxide thin films

Rare earth element (gadolinium) doped cadmium oxide (CdO:Gd) thin films were deposited using the pulsed laser deposition technique. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that growth temperature has large impact on the preferred orientation of the films. The films grown at low temperature show (1 1 1) preferred orientation, while films grown at high temperature have (2 0 0) orientation. The effect of substrate temperature on optical and electrical properties shows widening in optical bandgap and improvement in electron mobility with increase in growth temperature. These wide bandgap transparent conducting films could be used in optoelectronic applications.