Structural, Optical and Electrical Properties of Nanocrystalline Cuprous Oxide Thin Film Deposited By Chemical Method

Cuprous oxide (Cu2O) is an interesting p-type semiconductor material used in solar cell applications. The Modified Chemical Bath Deposition (M-CBD) method is suitable for growing thin multilayer structure due to low deposition temperature. This method does not require any sophisticated instrument and substrate need not to be conductive. The nanocrystalline Cu2O thin films were deposited on glass substrates by M-CBD method. The deposited films were characterized by different characterization techniques to study structural, surface morphological, optical and electrical properties. The structural studies show that, the formation of Cu2O thin films with an average crystallite size of 14 nm. Optical studies show a direct band gap 2.48 eV. The room temperature electrical resistivity is of the order of 1.3 kW-cm and activation energy 0.33 eV. The films exhibit p-type electrical conductivity as seen by thermo-emf measurements.