Investigation of structural, morphological and optical properties of Nickel-doped Zinc oxide thin films fabricated by co-sputtering

In this study, it was aimed to grow Nickel doped (0.0 at.%, 0.16 at.%, 0.20 at. % and 0.24 at. %) Zinc Oxide (NZO) thin films on quartz substrates using Magnetron Sputtering technique. NZO thin films were obtained at a temperature of 450 °C, a pressure of 480 m Torr and a deposition time of 30 min. Co-sputtering process for both Ni and ZnO target was performed using two separate power sources. The DC power of the Ni target material was 20, 30 and 40 W, respectively while the radio frequency (RF) power of the Zinc oxide (ZnO) target material was set to 150 W. Using XRD analysis, thin films were found to have polycrystalline morphology, and the average crystallite size changed significantly depending on the increased Ni doping level. The optical Transmittance of the thin films was greater than 90% in the visible region (550 nm), and this value tends to decrease slightly by Ni doping. The optical band gap (E g ) firstly decreased and then slightly increased with the Nickel doping ratio and these values were found to be 3.23 eV, 3.11 eV and 3.15 eV, respectively, with increase of Ni doping.