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Morphological and Structural Properties of Sol-Gel Derived ZnO Thin Films Spin-Coated on Different Substrates

In this work, ZnO thin films were prepared by the low-cost sol-gel deposition method onto six different substrates (glass, ITO coated glass, sapphire (Al2O3), p-Si, p-GaN and polyethylene terephthalate (PET)) to study the effects of these substrates on the morphological and structural properties of the produced films. Precursor solution is Zinc acetate dihydrate based dissolved in ethanol with monoethanolamine (C2H7NO) added to act as a stabilizing agent to the sol. The corresponding ZnO thin films were characterized using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Results revealed distinct morphological and structural properties of ZnO thin films deposited on each substrate. The most uniform morphology was identified on glass, owing to the acquisition of the averagely stable grain sizes (58 nm – 61 nm) and thin film thicknesses (280 nm – 325 nm). High resolution XRD analysis showed that the films deposited on glass, ITO, p-Si, and p-GaN were attributed to hexagonal crystallite structures while the films deposited on sapphire and PET substrates exhibited amorphous phases. Amongst the samples, the ZnO thin film spin coated on p-Si demonstrated preferred orientation in (002) direction.