The study of post annealing effect on Cu2O thin-films by electrochemical deposition for photoelectrochemical applications

In this study, we investigate the growth of Cu2O thin-films on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate by electrochemical deposition. We examined the effect of annealing temperatures as well as annealing durations on the morphological, structural, photoelectrochemical and optical properties of Cu2O thin-films grown with pH value 11. Our work shows that Cu2O thin-films grown at pH 11 have preferred growth orientation towards (1 1 1) and those films have higher photocurrent density. The photoelectrochemical property of the Cu2O thin-film was found highly depended on their crystallinity and morphology.