Structural and Photoelectrical Properties of NiOThin Film

NiO thin film is a p-type wide-bandgapsemiconductor material and has wide applications in magneticdevice, chemical sensor, especially in Ultra-violet(UV) detector devices. In this paper, NiO thin films weredeposited on quartz-glass substrate by magnetron sputteringmethod. The influences of the sputtering voltageon the structural, optical and electrical properties of NiOthin film were mainly investigated. It was found that thestructural, optical and electrical properties of NiO thinfilm were greatly dependent on the sputtering voltage. Atlower sputtering voltage, the NiO thin film was of amorphousstructure with no preferred orientations; the amorphousNiO thin film changed into crystalline one at highersputtering voltage. With the increasing of sputtering voltage,the optical transmittance became poorer, the bandgapand the resistivity of NiO thin film decreased. These obtainedresults will be helpful for optimizing the fabricationprocess of NiO thin films, ultimately to obtain high qualityNiO-based devices.