Effect of Deposition Method on Optical and Structural Properties of Bismuth Oxide Thin Films

Abstract

Thin films of bismuth oxide had been deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD) and spray pyrolysis (SP) methods. The films were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-visible spectrophotometry. Clear changes and differences in the optical and structural characteristics of the prepared films have been observed. The energy band gap was 2.5 eV for the films prepared via chemical bath deposition and 2.3 eV for the films prepared by spray pyrolysis. The FE-SEM results show obvious change in the film structure and the x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the average grain size was 54.8 and 150.39 nm for the films prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD) and spray pyrolysis (SP) methods, respectively.