The optical and structural properties of ZnO:Mn nano films grown by sol-gel

There are many techniques used to deposit high-quality ZnO thin films. One of these based on chemical method for the production of ZnO thin films is the sol-gel. ZnO:Mn nano films doped with manganese different concentrations were deposited on glass substrates by the spin-coating method. The precursors for the synthesis ZnO:Mn are: Zinc acetate dehydrate, manganese acetate dehydrate, 2-mithoxyethanol and monoethanolamine as zinc and manganese source, solvent and stabilizer respectively. Seven samples of diluted magnetic semiconductors ZnO:Mn were prepared with different atomic ratio Mn/Zn. Characterization techniques of XRD, EDX and UV-visible spectra measurements were done to investigate the effects of Mn doping concentration on the optical and structural properties of ZnO-.Mn nano films. The XRD patterns of all nano films show the crystallization behavior and are hexagonal wurtzite structure for different x, without existing other phases. Our results reveal that with high percent manganese not only the degree of crystalline decreases but also peak broadening occurs. The compositional analysis was carried out by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) measurement. Compositional analysis shows 0.00, 0.01, 0.018, 0,029, 0.041, 0.05 and 0.059 Mn/Zn ratios in samples. The optical studies show that the band gap of ZnO:Mn decreases for smaller x than 0.03 from 3.3 to 3.26 because there are a strong interaction between localized moments of the d electrons of Mn atom and band carriers of host material, and increases for higher x than 0.03 because of the structural changes of the material.