Characteristics of Cuprous Oxide Thin Films Deposited on Glass and Polyethylene Terephthalate Substrates
In this work, cuprous oxide (Cu2O) thin films grown on glass and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates using reactive radio frequency magnetron sputtering system were investigated. Copper target with purity of 99.99% were used while high purity argon-oxygen gases were utilized as sputtering gases. Structural, morphological, and optical properties of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy and ultra-violet visible spectrophotometer. From the XRD results, only one single diffraction peak corresponding to cubic Cu2O (111) crystal structure were observed for both substrates. The surface morphologies of the samples were in a form of pillar-like. Root mean square surface roughness for Cu2O on glass and PET substrates were 3.37 nm and 3.20 nm, respectively. The films were highly transparent for wavelength above 600 nm. The Cu2O films have direct band gap values of around 2.56 eV as determined by Taucs method.