The structural and surface morphology of annealed ZnO films

Abstract

ZnO thin films were deposited on the glass substrates via the sol-gel dip coating method. The films were annealed at various temperatures ranging from 350 °C to 550 °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to investigate the effect of annealing temperature on the structural and morphology properties of the films. The as grown films exhibited amorphous pattern while annealed films were polycrystalline structure with (002) preferential growth along c-axis orientation. The AFM micrographs revealed that the RMS roughness of the films increased as the annealing temperature increased. The grain size was ranging from 32.1 nm to 176.0 nm as the annealing temperature increased from 350 °C to 450 °C and decreased to 56.1 nm for 550 °C.