Author : Y. Ashok Kumar Reddy, B. Ajitha and P. Sreedhara Reddy

Nickel oxide (NiO) films were deposited on Corning 7059 glass substrates using DC reactive magnetron sputtering at different substrate temperatures in the range 30oC to 400oC. The effect of substrate temperature (Ts) on the structure, chemical binding configuration, surface morphology, composition, optical and electrical properties of NiO films was investigated. X-ray diffraction studies indicated that as Ts increased above 200oC; the preferred orientation (220) intensity was increased and had a stable cubic structure. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies revealed the grown films have single phase of NiO. From the morphological studies, it was observed that the grain size and root mean square roughness was increased with Ts. It is suggested that the growth temperature affects the properties of NiO film. Higher substrate temperature induces larger grain size and more perfect crystalline structure, which lead to low resistivity.

Keywords: Nickel oxide, Sputtering, Thin film, Substrate temperature, Grain size, Resistivity.

Article published in International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Sciences 2014, Special Issue-2 (Feb 2014)