Structural, Morphological and Optical properties of Sputtered Nickel oxide Thin Films

Nickel oxide (NiO) thin films have been deposited by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique on glass substrates at various substrate temperatures in the range of 303 to 723 K. The influence of substrate temperature on structural, morphological, compositional and optical properties was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and spectrophotometer studies. The structural properties of the films were strongly influenced by the substrate temperature. From the microstructural studies, fine and uniform grains were grown with RMS roughness of 9.4 nm at substrate temperature of 523 K. The optical results indicated that the optical transmittance of the films increases with increasing substrate temperature up to 523 K, thereafter decreases. The optical band of the films increases with substrate temperature initially, thereafter decreased at higher temperatures. The Highest optical transmittance of 60 % and optical band gap of 3.82 eV was observed in the present study.