The structural and optical properties of metallic doped copper (I) iodide thin films synthesized by SILAR method

Abstract The addition of impurities, method of synthesis and the nature of substrate are known to affect the property of deposited thin films. Aluminum (Al), Lead (Pb) and Zinc (Zn) were used as dopants for cuprous iodide (CuI) films at room temperature by SILAR method which effected the surface morphology, optical, structural and photoluminescence properties compared to undopedCuI thin film. The estimated energy band gap for the doped films varied from 1.90 to 2.30 eV. XRD result showed a face-centered cubic crystal structure with high peak orientation corresponding to (111) orientation. The Williamson and Hall (W-H) analysis was used to determine the contribution of crystallite size and lattice strain on the peak broadening of the deposited thin films. A higher optical transmittance was observed for all doped films, with photoluminescence occurrence in the near visible spectrum (400–440 nm) wavelength. Optical conductivity value 8.5 × 10 13 /s–11.5 × 10 13 /s at 2.4–3.0 eV was observed for the doped Films.