Controlled growth of Ag-ZnO thin films by thermal evaporation technique for optimized thermoelectric power generation

This manuscript is described the facile and cost-effective growth of silver Zinc Oxide (Ag-ZnO) thin films by simple thermal evaporation method for thermoelectric power generation applications. Growth of samples is started by making pellets of pure silver (Ag) and zinc (Zn) powders which are composed of 1:1 ration and evaporated in vacuum tube furnace. The other growth parameters are fixed as; evaporation time (45 min), evaporation temperature (1010 ⁰ C) and oxygen flow rate (60 sccm). Five samples are prepared at different source to substrate distances (6.5–8.5 in.) and post deposition annealing of all samples is carried out at 800 °C using semi-programable muffle furnace. Prepared thin films are analyzed using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Seebeck measurements to study the impact of various source to substrate distances on the structural morphological and thermoelectric behavior of Ag-ZnO nanocomposite thin films. The obtained results are revealed that different source to substrate distances strongly influence the structural, morphological, and thermoelectric behavior of prepared thin films. Optimal values for electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and powerful factor of synthesized thin films are calculated as 3.05 × 10 ³ S/m, 645 µV/°C and 1.27 × 10 ⁻³ Wm ^{−1 o}C ⁻² respectively at source to substrate distance of 7.0 in.