Sputtered CuO mono-phase thin films: Structural, compositional and spectroscopic linear/nonlinear optical characteristics

Mono phase CuO thin films through DC sputtering at various oxygen pressure (10, 20, 30, 40 sccm) was deposited on glass substrate. The structural analyses of the DC sputtered thin films were performed through X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. The atomic force microscope (AFM) exposed the variation in surface roughness with the change in the deposited Oxygen pressure of CuO thin films. The band gap at various oxygen pressures was also estimated. The dielectric properties in term of real/imaginary dielectric constants and dielectric loss have also been investigated. The surface chemical composition of deposited CuO thin films has been examined through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The Cu2p spectra indicated the presence of Cu2+ covalent bond with d9 configuration at ground state. The O1s spectra proved the increment in the chemisorbed oxygen (Oi) with the enchantment of deposition oxygen pressure. The nonlinear optical constant such as nonlinear refractive index, linear optical susceptibility and third order nonlinear susceptibility were also calculated through very simple inexpensive method. The advantage of this work is to calculate the linear and nonlinear optical investigations through spectroscopic approach rather than expensive experimental Z- scan method.