A study of Eu incorporated ZnO thin films: An application of Al/ZnO:Eu/p-Si heterojunction diode

In present work, the pure and europium (Eu) incorporated zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited with sol-gel spin coating by using zinc acetate dehydrate and Eu (III) chloride salts. The coated films were examined by means of XRD, AFM and UV/VIS spectrophotometer. The ZnO hexagonal wurtzite nanoparticles with (002) preferential direction were observed for all films. The values of crystallite size, micro-strain and surface roughness continuously increased from 21 nm, 1.10 × 10−3 and 2.43 nm to the values of 35.56 nm, 1.98 × 10−3 and 28.99 nm with Eu doping, respectively. The optical band gap value of the pure ZnO initially increased from 3.296 eV to 3.328 eV with Eu doping up to 2 at.% doping level, then it started to decrease with more Eu content. The electrical features of Al/n-ZnO:Eu/p-Si heterojunction diodes were inquired by current-voltage (I-V) measurements at the room temperature.