Manufacturing process and optical properties of zinc oxide thin films doped with zinc oxide nanoparticles

Due to much better physical properties of ZnO compared to the ones of titanium dioxide (TiO₂), which is currently the most used material in dye sensitized solar cells, efforts are being made to fabricate DSSCs with thin films and/or nanostructures, including nanowires, nanofibres and nanoparticles of zinc oxide. In this paper, zinc oxide thin films were prepared using sol-gel and spin coating methods from Zn(CH₃COO)₂ x 2H₂O dissolved in ethanol and acetic acid with ZnO monocrystalline nanoparticles of 0 and 10% (wt.) relative to the final concentration of produced solutions. The effect of calcination process on ZnO thin films at 600°C were examined using atomic force microscope to investigate the morphology of semiconductor coatings. Besides, optical properties were analysed on the basis of absorbance in the function of wavelength spectra and the values of energy band gaps were studied.