Study the effect of Ni doping on structural, optical and electrical properties of Zn1-xNixO thin films deposited by spray pyrolysis technique

The effect of Ni doping on structural, optical and electrical properties of deposited Zn1-xNixO thin films on glass substrate by spray pyrolysis technique has been studied. The main objective of this research is to study the change of the physical and optical properties of Zn1-xNixO thin films that are fabricant to semiconductor with different doping levels x. These levels are 0 at.%, 2 at.%, 4 at.%, 8 at.% and 12 at.%. The transmission spectra show that the Zn1-xNixO thin films have a good optical transparency in the visible region from 88 to 95%. The optical gap energy of the Zn1-xNixO thin films varied between 3.25 and 3.35 eV. The urbach energy varied between 65 and 230 meV. However, the Zn0.88Ni0.12O thin films have many defects with maximum value of urbach energy. The Zn0.88Ni0.12O thin films have minimum value of optical gap energy. The Zn0.88Ni0.12O thin films have maximum value of the electrical conductivity which is 9.40 (Ω.cm)-1 . The average electrical conductivity of our films is about (7.52 (Ω.cm)-1 ). XRD patterns of the Zn1- xNixO thin films indicate that films are polycrystalline with hexagonal wurtzite structure.