Optical properties of WO3 thin films using surface plasmon resonance technique

Indigenously assembled surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique has been exploited to study the thickness dependent dielectric properties of WO3 thin films. WO3 thin films (80 nm to 200 nm) have been deposited onto gold (Au) coated glass prism by sputtering technique. The structural, optical properties and surface morphology of the deposited WO3 thin films were studied using X-ray diffraction, UV-visible spectrophotometer, Raman spectroscopy, and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD analysis shows that all the deposited WO3 thin films are exhibiting preferred (020) orientation and Raman data indicates that the films possess single phase monoclinic structure. SEM images reveal the variation in grain size with increase in thickness. The SPR reflectance curves of the WO3/Au/prism structure were utilized to estimate the dielectric properties of WO3 thin films at optical frequency (lambda = 633 nm). As the thickness of WO3 thin film increases from 80 nm to 200 nm, the dielectric constant is seen to be decreasing from 5.76 to 3.42, while the dielectric loss reduces from 0.098 to 0.01. The estimated value of refractive index of WO3 film is in agreement to that obtained from UV-visible spectroscopy studies. The strong dispersion in refractive index is observed with wavelength of incident laser light. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.