Surface morphological and elemental analysis of thermally evaporated Cu2O: Ag thin films

Pure cuprous oxide (Cu2O) and doped with silver nanoparticles (Cu2O:Ag) thin films at an average thickness of (60±3) nm were fabricated using vacuum thermal evaporation technique at a deposition rate of 0.5 nm/s, then the deposited films were annealed at 573 K for 2.5 h. The regular surface morphology of the fabricated films was obtained using controlled thermal evaporation parameters. High-resolution FESEM images combined with the 3D AFM images demonstrated the surface morphology, roughness, shape, and size of the evaporated material. The surface morphological, elemental, and morphology analysis of the fabricated films of the deposited films exhibit the growth of pure and Ag-doped Cu2O films with large surface diffusion on the used substrates. The thermal evaporation process can proceed continuously under high vacuum ambient providing an economic and easy method to fabricate high purity Cu2O films. As-grown films surface exhibited a smooth morphology and occur with homogeneous clusters that are uniformly distributed with a grain size of about (18-24 nm). The As-grown film homogeneity was obtained by controlling the deposition at low-pressure circumstances (1×10−7 mbar). The observed morphological and topology properties could give rise to use of the fabricated pure and Ag-doped Cu2O films as active layers in solar cell devices and optoelectronic applications.