Influence of Al content on microstructure and optical transmittance of sol-gel dip-coated ZnO films

Aluminum-doped zinc oxide thin film (Al:ZnO) was derived by the sol-gel dip-coating technique to analyze the doping effect on the film’s crystal structure and optical transparency. The surface structure of the thin film had the particles in the nano-spherical form. Al amount changed surface roughness with the variation of the grain size. The crystal structure of ZnO was wurtzite (in XRD analysis). The surface morphology of the film was also examined with SEM images. The effect of Al doping was investigated to evaluate the necessary amount of Al on the optical properties. The films show high optical transparency (~۸۵%) at specific Al doping amounts (۰.۸-۱.۶%).