Annealing Temperature Dependence of Optical Properties of Sol-Gel ZnO Thin Films with Different Sol Aging Time

ZnO thin films on glass substrates have been successfully fabricated by sol-gel method for various aging time and annealing temperature. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns showed the crystallites at (100), (002) and (101) plane of hexagonal wurtzite structure. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images were used to investigate the surface morphology. The transmittance, energy gap, Urbach energy and photoluminescence (PL) of samples were investigated to explore the effects of annealing temperature on optical properties of ZnO thin films under different sol aging time. The transmittance spectra of thin films aged for 24 hours and 48 hours revealed the enhanced transmittance in visible region as rising annealing temperature, also, the optical band gap of the samples increased and Urbach energy decreased. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra of samples aged for 24 hours and 48 hours were studied and found the increased ultraviolet emission at ~387 nm, and various decreased visible emissions with rising annealing temperature. Nevertheless, the excessive sol aging time for 72 hours deteriorated the optical characteristics of thin films, resulting in that transmittance, energy gap and ultraviolet emission declined, and visible emissions increased with rising annealing temperature. The optical performances of the ZnO films aged for different time have no the same dependence of annealing temperature.