Effect of Annealing Temperatures on Structural and Morphological Properties of Copper doped Nickel Oxide Thin Films Prepared by RF Magnetron Sputtering

Nickel oxide (NiO) thin film is metal oxide that has attracted much attention in recent years due to its environment friendliness. In addition, by doping impurities such as copper (Cu) in NiO films the properties of prepared films can be changed. In this study, Cu:NiO thin films were deposited on silicon substrates by RF reactive magnetron sputtering. Then the deposited films were annealed at different temperatures of 200-600 °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results showed that all the prepared films were amorphous and the structural properties of films didn’t vary by annealing temperature. Also, atomic force microscopy (AFM) images demonstrated that the surface morphology of the films was affected by annealing temperature. The root mean square (Rms) roughness and average roughness (Ra) values were obtained from AFM observations. FTIR analysis shows the peaks in the wavenumber of 528 cm-1 and 742 cm-1 which are related to Ni-O stretching mode and Cu-O bond bending vibrations.