Characterizations of multilayer ZnO thin films deposited by sol-gel spin coating technique

In this work, zinc oxide (ZnO) multilayer thin films are deposited on glass substrate using sol-gel spin coating technique and the effect of these multilayer films on optical, electrical and structural properties are investigated. It is observed that these multilayer films have great impact on the properties of ZnO. Xray Diffraction (XRD) confirms that ZnO has hexagonal wurtzite structure. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed the crack-free films which have uniformly distributed grains structures. Both micro and nano particles of ZnO are present on thin films. Four point probe measured the electrical properties showed the decreasing trend between the average resistivity and the number of layers. The optical absorption spectra measured using UV-Vis. showed the average transmittance in the visible region of all films is 80% which is good for solar spectra. The performance of the multilayer as transparent conducting material is better than the single layer of ZnO. This work provides a low cost, environment friendly and well abandoned material for solar cells applications. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.