Sol gel deposited CdO: In films

CdO thin films have great technological interest due to their high-quality electrical and optical properties. Mixed oxides of CdO have been used in photovoltaic devices, gas sensors, phototransistors etc. In this work, the Acrylamide route was used to deposit CdO: In films. XRD patterns of the undoped and indium-doped CdO films exhibit cubic structure of the cadmium oxide with five characteristic peaks assignable to the (111), (200), (220), (311) and (222) planes. The intensity of the peaks decreases and the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) increases as the indium content increases. The resistivity of the films decreases by two orders with Indium doping. It is observed that all the deposited films exhibited high transmission of about 70–90% in the visible range of 500–600 nm. The value for CdO film without doping is 2.41 eV, while the doping of 6 at wt% indium results in an increase of band gap to 2.97 eV. Surface morphology studies with Atomic force microscope indicated the formation of nanocrystallites with surface roughness around 0.3 nm.