Development of automated nebulizer spray pyrolysis setup for chemical vapor deposition-like growth of oxide thin films

In this paper, a low-cost open-source electronic interface for spray pyrolysis is presented. The exhibited electronic circuit with the Arduino based microcontroller is the interface between the primary process parameters and the computer running National Instruments® LabVIEW®. The complete model of the setup and the deposition flow are proposed to achieve a reproducible deposition of thin films through the novel spray pyrolysis technique, in which the reproducibility, repeatability, and uniformity are the major problems to be resolved. The conventional spray 84 nozzle was replaced by the therapeutic aerosol nebulizer, again a cost viable replacement. The efficacy of the automated nebulizer spray pyrolysis (n-SP) setup was demonstrated by depositing zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films and characterizing the films to study the quality of the n-SP deposited thin films. The results suggest that the proposed automated nebulizer spray pyrolysis setup has the ability to deposit CVD-like reproducible thin films of device quality. (author)