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A noticeable effect of novel Nd3+ doping on physical properties of nebulizer spray deposited AZO thin films for optoelectronic technology

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Abstract

In this work, neodymium (Nd) doped aluminum zinc oxide (Nd:AZO) films are prepared on glass substrates via simple spray nebulizer method for the first time. The different Nd doping concentrations were taken as 0%, 0.5%, 1% and 1.5 wt%, however, Al concentration was kept constant as 3 wt%. From X-ray diffraction (XRD) data, various structural properties like: crystallite size, microstrain, dislocation density, lattice constants and texture coefficient were investigated. XRD study confirmed that the Al and Nd were incorporated into ZnO. All the deposited films are of polycrystalline nature and hexagonal structure with (002) orientation. The topology studied by AFM showed that the film had low surface roughness and its values were slightly increased from 21 to 37 nm. Elemental mapping and EDAX studies confirmed the occurrence of Zn, O, Al and Nd in prepared Nd:AZO film. Transmission of deposited Nd:AZO film is around 92% in visible spectrum and estimated energy gap is ~ 3.31 eV. PL spectrum emitted one strong NBE emission at ~ 386 nm for all films, signify their better optical quality. Electrical parameters were studied by four probe measurement and low resistivity (ρ) i.e. ~ 4.12 × 10−4 Ω cm and high carrier concentrations (n) i.e. ~ 3.96 × 1021 cm−3 were observed for 1.5 wt% Nd:AZO films. The calculated value of ϕ is large as 14.33 × 10−3 (Ω/sq)−1, which are enough for an opto-electronic application.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their sincere thanks to the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, India for their financial assistance for the work by the project number SB/FTP/PS-131/2013. Authors from KKU express their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through research groups program under grant number R.G.P. 2/30/40.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. PG and Research Department of Physics, Periyer E.V.R College, Trichy 620 023, India

    A. Sakthivelu

  2. PG and Research Department of Physics, Arul Anandar College, Karumathur, Madurai, 625514, India

    K. Deva Arun Kumar & S. Valanarasu

  3. Advanced Functional Materials and Optoelectronics Laboratory (AFMOL), Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, King Khalid University, Abha, 61413, Saudi Arabia

    Mohd. Shkir, V. Ganesh & S. AlFaify

  4. Millimeter-Wave Innovation Technology Research Center (MINT), Dongguk University, Seoul, 04620, Republic of Korea

    A. Kathalingam

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  1. A. Sakthivelu
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Sakthivelu, A., Kumar, K.D.A., Valanarasu, S. et al. A noticeable effect of novel Nd3+ doping on physical properties of nebulizer spray deposited AZO thin films for optoelectronic technology. Opt Quant Electron 51, 320 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-019-2027-1

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