Breaking Boundaries in LED Technology: Exploring the Revolutionary Diode Characteristics of Screen Printed (TiO2)1−x (CuO)x Thick Films

A thick TiO 2 -CuO composite film is deposited on a Si substrate by a low-cost screen printing method. Both anatase and CuO-doped TiO 2 are characterized for diode applications. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) confirms that the composite film exists as an anatase phase of TiO 2 and a monoclinic phase of CuO with a maximum diffraction of (101) plane. SEM images depict the less severe agglomeration of particles for the doped TiO 2 as compared to the anatase TiO 2 . The UV–visible spectra reveal a direct band gap shift of 3.35 eV (pure TiO 2 ) to 3.26 eV (doped TiO 2 ). From the PL study, the blue shaded emission is perfectly derived for anatase TiO 2 while the color is seen to change to the white zone supporting TiO 2 -CuO composite formation as depicted by the CIE diagram. The diode parameters such as ideality factor (n) and barrier height (Φ b ) are calculated with the help of I–V characteristics. This only reported novel effort on screen-printed TiO 2 -CuO thick film may help in manufacturing possible LEDs for optoelectronic applications.