Electrically conductive zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures prepared by solgel spin-coating

The electrically conductive zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures prepared by sol-gel spin coating are presented. This project has been focused on electrical, optical and structural properties of Al doped ZnO thin film. The effects of Al doping concentration at 0~5 at.% on the Al doped ZnO thin film properties have been investigated. This project involves 3 processes which are thin film preparation, deposition and characterization. The thin films were characterized using Current-Voltage (I-V) measurement and UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer for electrical properties and optical properties respectively. The surface morphology has been characterized using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). The I-V measurement result indicated electrical properties of Al doped ZnO thin film improved with Al doping. The absorption coefficient spectra obtained from UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer measurement show all films have low absorbance in visible and near infrared (IR) region but have high UV absorption properties. The FESEM investigations shows that the nanoparticles size become smaller and denser as the doping concentration increase.