Influence of Substrate Temperature on the NiO Thin Films for p-NiO/n-Si UV-Visible Photodetector

In this report NiO thin films were grown on glass substrates by using pulsed laser deposition technique under different substrate temperatures (200 degrees C to 500 degrees C). X-ray diffraction analysis infers that the crystalline nature of the NiO thin films was improved significantly with substrate temperature. The transmittance of the deposited film enhanced with the increase of substrate temperature where as optical bandgap of the films decreased. Further, NiO thin film is grown on n-Si substrate at a substrate temperature of 400 degrees C to fabricate p-NiO/n-Si heterojunction diode. The p-NiO/n-Si heterojunction diode exhibited good responsivity similar to 0.34 A/W under UV illumination and 0.07 A/W under solar simulated light biased at +8 V, respectively.