Study of molybdenum trioxide thin film deposited using dip coating method

Abstract Molybdenum trioxide with its varied properties has been used in various field like electrochromics devices, gas sensors, rechargeable lithium ion battery, solar cells etc. which makes it an attractive materials. Particularly, α-MoO3 phase with (0k0) orientation corresponding to the orthorhombic phase is widely used for sensing applications due to its layered structure. With economical and chemical route, MoO3 thin film deposition using dip coating method is presented. The ammonium heptamolybdate was used as source of molybdenum, DI water as solvent for the dip coating and monoethanolamine as a binding agent. The effect of annealing on the dip coated thin films at temperatures 250 °C, 350 °C and 450 °C was studied. The structural and optical properties of the prepared thin films were studied using X-Ray diffraction technique and UV–Visible spectroscopy respectively. XRD reveals that the crystalline nature of the film increases with increase in annealed temperature. The thin film annealed at 450 °C temperature exhibits highly (0k0) oriented orthorhombic structure with crystallize size of 16 nm. Moreover, the Surface morphology and Stoichiometry of the 450 °C annealed film was studied with the help of Scanning electron microscopy and Energy dispersive X-ray analysis.