Fabrication and characterization of Mn-doped CuO thin films by the SILAR method

Thin films of un-doped and Mn-doped CuO nanostructures have been deposited on glass substrates via the SILAR method. The morphological, compositional, structural and optical properties of the films have been investigated by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis and UV vis spectrophotometry. The analyzed results indicate that the obtained films consist of plate-like nanostructures. From the EDS analysis it is seen that Mn-doping concentration affects the shapes of the nanostructures. XRD results show that all of the films have monoclinic structure. From the room temperature UV-viS analysis it is found that the optical band gap of the films increases with increasing Mn-doping concentrations. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.