Deposition of thin films by chemical solution-assisted techniques

Thin-film technology can be extensively used to obtain a variety of single and multilayer films for a variety of applications such as photovoltaic, sensors, energy storage, catalysis, coating, and biomedical devices. Over the past decades, thin-film technology has grown significantly for scaled-up production by utilizing both top-down and bottom-up methods. Chemical and physical deposition processes are perfected to deposit homo- and heterojunctional thin films by appropriate choice of precursor materials, by optimizing deposition parameters, and by adjusting postdeposition annealing conditions. However, among these two deposition processes, it is well documented that solution-based methods offer easy stoichiometric control, help in realizing low-cost large-area deposition, assist in low-temperature growth of scalable materials, and offer good control over the film thickness, porosity, mechanical strength, optical properties, and versatility in doping. Thus, in the present chapter, details of solution-based deposition techniques, such as chemical solution deposition, sol-gel preparation, dip coating, spin coating, chemical vapor deposition, electrodeposition, chemical exfoliation, successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction method, self-assembly, ink-jet printing, solvothermal process, and Langmuir-Blodgett techniques are discussed in brief as introductory lessons. In the process, a comparative survey on the techniques is also undertaken.