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Abstract
In this paper, the synthesis of nanocrystalline Nickel oxide (NiO) thin films on quartz substrates using a pulsed 532 nm Q-Switched Nd: YAG laser is presented, the annealing temperature was varied from (200 - 400 ˚C). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results show that the deposited films are crystalline in nature. Furthermore, a higher annealing temperature resulted in a thicker NiO film, which was attributed to an increased grain size. The morphology of deposited films were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM);with increasing annealing temperature, the grain size increase .The grain size value (10,23 and 40 nm) for thin films annealing at 200 ,300 and 400˚C respectively., and with increasing annealing temperature, surface roughness decrease. RMS roughness values were (13.5, 7.8 and 5.5 nm) for thin films annealing at 200, 300 and 400˚C respectively. UV–Vis spectrophotometric measurement showed high transparency (nearly 92 % in the wavelength range 400–900 nm) of the NiO thin film with a direct allowed band gap value lying in the range 3.51–3.6 eV.
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