Preparation of nanocrystalline Cu2O thin film by pulsed laser deposition

In this paper, the synthesis of nanocrystalline copper oxides Cu2O and CuO thin films on glass substrates using a pulsed 532 nm Nd:YAG laser is presented. Deposition of films is achieved at two different substrate temperatures. The influence of substrate temperature on the structural and optical properties of copper oxide films are discussed and analyzed. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that the deposited films are crystalline in nature. Films prepared at 300 A degrees C substrate temperature were Cu2O and has (111) and (200) diffracted peaks, while films grown at 500 A degrees C were CuO and has (111) and (020) planes. The morphology of deposited films were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM). The optical energy gap of Cu2O and CuO films have been determined and found to be 2.04 and 1.35 eV respectively.