Optical and electrical properties of Al-doped zinc oxide nanorod thin films for UV sensor applications / Nurul Izzah Ishak

Aluminium (Al) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films with doping concentration of 1% at have been prepared using sol-gel spin coating method. Then the nanorod structure was grown on top of the Al-doped ZnO which act as the seed layer on the glass substrate using sonicated sol-gel immersion technique. The nanorod structure was grown at different immersion time from 1 hour to 5 hour. The nanorods was characterized using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), atomic force microscope (AFM), surface profiler, UV-VisNIR spectrophotometer, UV photo response, 3540 pH and conductivity meter and current voltage measurement (I-V) for structural, optical and electrical properties respectively. The optimal time obtained in this research is 1 hour immersion time. The results for 1 hour immersion time indicate high transmission in the visible region (400-800nm) and high absorbance in the UV region (<400nm). It also indicates an Ohmic behavior at I-V characteristics. 1 hour immersion time can be used for UV sensor application fabrication since the photocurrent under UV illumination indicates high responsivity due to the effect of oxygen absorption and deabsorption process from its nanostructure crystal.