Synthesis and Characterization of Ni-doped ZnO Thin Films Grown by Sol-Gel Spin Coating

ZnO thin film doped with nickel has been grown by sol-gel spin coating technique. The thin films were prepared using zinc acetate dehydrate, ISO propanol, and ethanolamine as a precursor, solvent, and stabilizer respectively. For dopant, Nickel (II) acetate tetrahydrate with different concentration of Ni was added to the mixture. The sol-gel was deposited on a corning glass substrate at room temperature with a speed rate of 3000 rpm during 60 seconds. The Ni-doped ZnO thin films were put into a tube furnace for heat treatment at 500°C for 60 minutes. The characterization of the film was studied using X-ray diffraction (X-RD), and the optical transmittance UV-Vis measurements. The X-RD results show that a good crystallite was clearly observed in a hexagonal wurtzite structure with preferential orientation of (101) plane. The optical UV-Vis measurements show that the transmittance value increased with increasing the concentration of a dopant percentage. The optical band gap of Ni-doped ZnO was in the range of 3.20 – 3.23 eV. (paper)