Investigations of Structural, Morphological and Optical Properties of Spray Deposited Lithium Ferrite Thin Films

Lithium Ferrite thin film has been deposited by chemical spray pyrolysis method on a cleaned glass substrate at a temperature of 380 degrees C. The deposited film was annealed at 550 degrees C for 4 h. X-ray diffraction technique was employed to confirm the formation of single phase nanocrystalline thin film. The crystallite size of the present thin film is of the order of 18 nm confirming the nanocrystalline nature of the film. The thickness of the film was measured by surface profiler meter and is found to be 275 nm. Using AFM images the average roughness approximately 45 nm thin films were calculated. The band gap of 2.1 eV allowed direct electronic transition was observed through UV-vis studies.