Boron doping effects in electrochromic properties of NiO films prepared by sol-gel

In this paper, NiO films doped with B2O3 were first prepared by sol-gel. The effects of boron content on the structure and electrochromic properties of NiO films were studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cyclic voltammetric (CV) and UV-vis spectrophotometer, respectively. In addition, the roughness and phase of the bleached/colored were studied by atom force microscopy (AFM). B-doped prevent the crystallization of the films. The colored state transmittance could be significantly lowered when the boron added. The NiO film doped with boron exhibited a noticeable electrochromism with a variation of transmittance up to similar to 60% at the wavelength range of 300-500 nm. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.