Investigation of the structural, optical and magnetic properties of Fe doped ZnO thin films coated on glass by sol-gel spin coating method

Fe doped ZnO thin films with varying Fe concentrations say 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20 at% were prepared on the glass substrate by sol-gel spin coating technique and their structural, morphological, optical and magnetic properties were investigated. XRD results indicated that the prepared samples were single crystalline films with hexagonal wurtzite structure. Secondary phases or impurity clusters were not observed for the samples. SEM images of the prepared samples showed clear fibrous structures. AFM analysis revealed the increase of film roughness for the Fe doped films. Tauc's plot was used to find the band gap of the prepared samples which was found to increase with the increase of Fe concentration and thus showed a redshift. PL spectra showed NBE, violet, blue and green emissions for the undoped and Fe doped films. Magnetic measurements confirmed a clear ferromagnetic behavior for all the prepared samples. (C) 2016 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.