Structural, Morphological, Optical and Electrical Properties of CuO Nanostructures Undoped and Doped with Silver

M. Zeroualia, R. Daïraa, D. Bourasb, B. Boudjemaa, B. Régisc aLRPCSI, University of 20 Août 1955 Skikda, P.B. 26, Route d'El-Hadaiek, 21000 Skikda, Algeria bDepartment of Science of Matter, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Souk-Ahras, 41000 Souk Ahras, Algeria cMOLTECH-Anjou, University of Angers/UMR CNRS 6200, 2 Bd Lavoisier, 49045 Angers, France

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Copper oxide thin films undoped and doped with silver (15 wt%, 25 wt%) were deposited by two different methods, namely sol-gel dip coating and sol-gel spin coating, on a glass substrate with a 0.2 M precursor concentration. The samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray, UV-visible spectrophotometry, and the four-point probe method. Structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties of Ag-doped CuO are studied. According to the X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, all peaks confirm the formation of the tenorite phase with a monoclinic structure. The thin films were all polycrystalline with directions along (200). According to scanning electron microscopy, the morphology of the films is almost smooth. A comparison is made between the two techniques of fabrication in terms of electric conductivity, morphology, energy gap, and average transmission in the visible domain.

DOI:10.12693/APhysPolA.146.304 topics: copper oxide, doped silver, dip coating, spin coating