Structural, Transport and Optical Properties of Boron-doped Zinc Oxide Nanocrystalline

The paper has reported the structural, transport and optical properties of boron doped zinc oxide (ZnO:B) thin films grown on glass substrate by sol-gel spin coating process. It is observed from the analysis of the X-ray diffraction (XRD) results that the crystalline quality of the films is improved with increasing B concentration. A crystallite size of ∼17 nm is obtained for B doped films. A minimum resistivity of 7.9×l0-4 Ω·cm is obtained at 0.6 at.% of B concentration in the ZnO:B films. Ionized and intragrain cluster scattering are found to dominate the scattering mechanism in ZnO:B films. Optical interference pattern in transmittance spectra shows good homogeneity with a transparency of ∼88% in the visible region. The band gap of the films is increased from 3.24 to 3.35 eV with increasing B concentration. Band gap widening is analyzed in terms of Burstein-Moss shift. The origin of the broad band photoluminescence (PL) spectra is explained in terms of the intragrain cluster scattering. © 2011 The Chinese Society for Metals.