Structural, optical and electrical properties of Mg-doped CuCrO2 thin films by sol–gel processing

CuCr1−xMgxO2 (x = 0, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07) thin films were prepared on sapphire substrates by sol–gel processing. The effect of Mg concentrations on the structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties was investigated. Highly transparent ≧70% Mg-doped CuCrO2 thin films with p-type conduction and semiconductor behavior were obtained. The microstructure of the systems was characterized by scanning electron microscopy and the roughness increased as the content of Mg increased. The photoluminescence spectra results indicated that it had a green luminescent emission peak at the 530 nm. In this paper, CuCr0.95Mg0.05O2 film has the lowest resistivity of 7.34 Ω cm with direct band gap of 3.11 eV. In order to investigate the conduction mechanism, the energy band of the CuCrO2 films is constructed based on the grain-boundary scattering.

► In this paper, highly transparent p-type Mg-doped CuCrO2 semiconductor thin films were prepared by sol–gel pressing.
► The effects of Mg content on the structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties have been studied.
► The optical and electrical results show the properties of high transmittance and low resistivity relatively.