Nanoflower rod wire-like structures of dual metal (Al and Cr) doped ZnO thin films: Structural, optical and electronic properties

Abstract Transition metal (TM) doped ZnO thin-films are increasingly being investigated for the advancement of optoelectronic devices. Functional dual TMs doping into ZnO nanostructures might influence of the charge carrier recombination rate, optical, structural and interfacial electron-transport rate performance. In this study, we demonstrated the fabrication of nanostructured thin-films of pure-ZnO, aluminium doped-ZnO (Al:ZnO or AZO) and Al with chromium doped-ZnO (Al+Cr:ZnO or ACZO) by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Surface morphology of prepared thin-films resembled the distinctive shapes such as (pure-ZnO) nanowires, (AZO) nanorods and (ACZO) nanoflower-like structures, respectively. Variation of structural, optical, morphological and electrical properties were characterized by glancing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), micro-Raman scattering (μ-RS), electron microscopy and transport field emission (F–E) techniques. The electron transport F–E result shows that ACZO has high conductivity than the undoped films.