Structural, Morphological, Optical and Electrical Properties of CuO Nanostructures Undoped and Doped with Silver

Abstract

Copper  oxide  thin  films  undoped  and  doped  with silver (15 wt%, 25 wt%) were deposited by two different methods, namely sol–gel dip coating and sol–gel spin coating,  on  a  glass  substrate with a 0.2 M precursor concentration. The samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray, UV-visible spectrophotometry, and the four-point probe method. Structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties of Ag-doped CuO are studied. According to the X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, all peaks confirm the formation of the tenorite phase with a monoclinic structure. The thin films were all polycrystalline with directions along (200). According to scanning electron microscopy, the morphology of the films is almost smooth. A comparison is made between the two techniques of fabrication in terms of electric conductivity, morphology, energy gap, and average transmission in the visible domain.