Transition metal oxides are a special class of materials
that have a wide range of optical, electrical, and mechanical properties.
Nickel oxide (NiO) is a p-type oxide semiconductor by nature. When combined
with transparency and low temperature (low-T) fabrication processes, P-NiO with
controllable and repeatable physico-chemical properties can be fully exploited
in a wide range of transparent and/or flexible devices for applications such as
energy management (production, manipulation, storage), sensing, wearable and
health-care electronics, and so on. The goal for this research is to improve
the reproducibility, transparency, and low-T fabrication procedures of p-type
NiO. One of the dopants utilised to change the characteristics of NiO is
nitrogen. Until now, the characteristics of nitrogen-doped NiO have been
inferior to those of pure NiO. We provide nitrogen-doped NiO (NiO:N) thin films
with improved characteristics compared to undoped NiO in this paper. Sputtering
on room-temperature substrates in plasma comprising 50 percent Ar and 50
percent (O2+N2) gases produced NiO:N films. The undoped NiO film was a
single-phase cubic oxygen-rich NiO with a transmittance of less than 20%. The
films grew more transparent (about 65 percent) after doping with nitrogen, had
a wide direct band gap (up to 3.67 eV), and clearly revealed evidence of an
indirect band gap, 2.50-2.72 eV, depending on the percent (O2-N2) in plasma.
The integration of nitrogen in the structure was linked to changes in the
films' attributes such as structural disorder, energy band gap, Urbach states,
and resistivity. To make a diode with spin-coated, mesoporous on top of a
compact TiO2 film, the best NiO:N film was used. Both I-V and Cheung's
techniques revealed that the hybrid NiO:N/TiO2 heterojunction was transparent
and had good output characteristics. Thermal treatment improved the diode's
transparency and characteristics, which was attributed to improved NiO:N
properties after annealing. All-oxide flexible optoelectronic devices can be
made with transparent NiO:N sheets.
Author(s) Details:
Chrysa Aivalioti,
Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, P.O.
Box 2208, 71003, Heraklion, Crete, Greece and Microelectronics Research Group,
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and
Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385, Heraklion, Greece.
Alexandros Papadakis,
Department of Physics, University of Crete, P.O. Box 2208, 71003, Heraklion,
Crete, Greece.
Emmanouil Manidakis,
Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, P.O.
Box 2208, 71003, Heraklion, Crete, Greece and Microelectronics Research Group,
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and
Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385, Heraklion, Greece.
Maria Kayambaki,
Microelectronics Research Group, Institute of Electronic Structure and
Laser, Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385,
Heraklion, Greece.
Maria Androulidaki,
Microelectronics Research Group, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser,
Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385,
Heraklion, Greece.
Katerina Tsagaraki,
Microelectronics Research Group, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser,
Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385,
Heraklion, Greece.
Nikolaos T. Pelekanos,
Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, P.O. Box
2208, 71003, Heraklion, Crete, Greece and Microelectronics Research Group,
Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and
Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385, Heraklion, Greece.
Constantinos Stoumpos,
Department of Materials Science and Technology, University of Crete, P.O.
Box 2208, 71003, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
Mircea Modreanu,
Tyndall National Institute-University College Cork, Lee Maltings, Dyke Parade,
Cork, T12 R5CP, Ireland.
Gabriel Craciun,
National Institute for Research and Development in Microtechnologies -IMT,
Bucharest, Romania.
Cosmin Romanitan,
National Institute for Research and Development in Microtechnologies -IMT,
Bucharest, Romania.
Elias Aperathitis,
Microelectronics Research Group, Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser,
Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH-Hellas), P.O. Box 1385,
Heraklion, Greece.
Please see the
link here: https://stm.bookpi.org/RTCAMS-V6/article/view/5789
