Enhanced properties of Zn-, Mg-incorporated CdO films through Cl doping

This paper reports the effect of chlorine doping on the properties of spray-deposited cadmium oxide (CdO) thin films simultaneously doped with two metallic ions, zinc and magnesium. All the films have polycrystalline nature exhibiting cubic crystal structure. The preferential orientation along the (111) plane observed for the undoped and Zn, Mg co-doped CdO (ZMCO) films changed to (200) plane with Cl doping. Cl doping enhances the optical transparency of ZMCO thin films causing a blue shift in their band gap values which was attributed to Burstein–Moss (BM) effect. Electrical resistivity studies showed an increase in free carrier concentration of ZMCO films through Cl doping. The ZMCO films were found to have enhanced physical properties through Cl doping which make them suitable for optoelectronic applications.