The effect of sol aging time on Structural and Optical properties of sol gel ZnO doped Al

Currently the doped or undoped ZnO semiconductor is of great importance in the field of electronic and optoelectronic devices such as transparent conductors and optical windows of solar cells based on silicon. ZnO thin films are produced by several techniques such as sol-gel method which is a chemical technique usually dependent on solution conditions. However, the sol gel aging time is an important parameter, which can have a significant impact on the properties of thin films. In this work we studied the effect of aging times (0h, 24h, 48h, 72h, 1 week) of the precursor solution on the structural and optical properties of ZnO doped Al (3 at.%). Thin films prepared by spin coating on glass substrates were investigated. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis shows that the ZnO doped Al (3 at.%) exhibit the hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferential orientation along [002] direction. The shift of (002) peaks towards higher diffraction angles is observed with sol aging time and also, a variation of crystallite sizes and thickness of thin films are shown with increasing sol aging time. All films present an average optical transmittance around 90% in the visible range with some interference fringes indicating a relative smoothness of films. We note an increasing in transmittance level with sol aging time from 0h to 48h. We can conclude that the aging times of the precursor solution influences the structural and optical properties of studied thin films. (paper)