Structural and optical properties of Ba(Cox,Ti1-x)O3 thin films fabricated by sol-gel process

Ba(Co-x,Ti1-x)O-3 thin films were prepared on fused quartz substrate by a sol-gel method. The results of x-ray diffraction showed that the films are perovskite phase and the change of lattice constant caused by different Co concentration is undetectable. Optical transmittance measurement indicated that Co doping has effect on the energy band structure. The energy gap of Ba(Co-x,Ti1-x)O-3 decreased linearly with the increase of Co concentration. It is inferred that the energy level of conduction bands decline with the Co content increasing. This result is similar to the phenomena found in binary semiconductor where the band gap decreases with the increasing of average atomic number. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.