Synthesis and Optical Characteristics of AgO Thin Films

Synthesis and Optical Characteristics of AgO Thin FilmsSynthesis and Optical Characteristics of AgO subtle enters Fabricated by Chemical Bath Deposition Method1EZENWA I. A., 2OBIAGAUZO P. O. 3EBEH L. N.ABSTRACTBinary thin films of eloquent oxide using chemical Bath method (CBD) reserve been grown and characterized. Absorbance spectral data of the films were obtained using a Shimadzu 1800 UV- VIS spectrophotometer. An Olympus optical microscope at 100X magnification was used to examine and produce micrograph of the grown thin, which showed that the films arrest crystal organize and take up small grain sizes. A bandgap of 1.62eV and a refractive index range of 1.1- 2.31were obtained.INTRODUCTIONBinary thin films be thin films that contain just now two different elements. Binary thin film had been grown and characterized by many researchers for non-homogeneous applications, examples are Ag2S (Ezenwa et al., 2012), FeS (Uhuegbu, 1989), ZnS (Ndukwe 1999), Ag4O3, (Bielmann et al , 2002), Silver being multivalent, have various phases like Ag2O, AgO, Ag3O4, Ag4O3, and Ag2O3 by interacting with oxygen (Bielmann, Scheallar, Ruffieux, Groning, Schlapbach, 2002).These oxides have different crystalline structures leading to a variety of physiochemical, electrochemical, electronic and optical properties. The most observable and stable phases are Ag2O and AgO (Garner and Reeves, 1954). Ag2O thin films have been widely studied due to their wide range of applications. The recent interest in silver oxide is for its potential use in optical memories. Photoactivation of silver oxide leads to nanosilver clusters (Hou, Ouyang, Chen et al 1998).These nanoclusters emit fluorescence and also exhibit plasmonic behavior. These properties have a wide application range from ultra high assiduousness optical data storage to plasmon photonic devices (Tominaga, 2002).They are also used as a sensor for gas detection and photovoltaic materials, studies have shown that silver oxide fil ms have a wide range of energy band gap of between 1.2 and 3.4eV(Dierson, Rousselot, 2005).The major routes used for silver oxide films deposition are reactive sputtering of silver metal in an oxygen-containing argon atmosphere and electron-beam evaporation of silver metal. Another method is the pulsed laser deposition technique (Raju, Kumar, 2011),this method takes place in vapourific phase, hence requiring high temperatures. These high temperature methods also limit the type of substrates used in high temperature resistant substrates. Alternatively wet chemistry and electrochemical methods have been used as low temperature method.Wet chemistry methods generally require the substrates to be dipped inside the precursor solution for days to form thin film materials at temperatures of up to 200C, while electrochemical deposition grows thin film materials on conductive substrate at lower temperatures (