Novel synthesis of ZnO thin films by facile solution process

A facile solution process to synthesis ZnO thin films was successfully conducted in this work. Zinc acetate dihydrates were used as the main precursor, dissolved in the mixture of acetylacetone and ethanol whichact as solvent and precursor simultaneously. This mixture deposited by spin coating and dried under ambient atmosphere at room temperature. The reaction mechanism, structure, morphology, chemical composition and optoelectrical properties of the resulted ZnO thin film were studied. The as deposited films were annealed at 500 °C for 2 h under O₂ gas flow added with H₂O vapor and CO₂ gas. The ZnO thin films showed a dense, homogenous morphology and high transparency. The film is an n-type semiconductor with 3.18 eV bandgap, has 1.25 × 10⁻¹⁹ cm³ carrier concentration, 12 cm²/Vs electron mobility and 2.42 × 10⁻³ Ω·cm resistivity making it suitable for application as window layer in a photovoltaic cell.