Effect of Firing Temperature on Structural Parameters of Screen Printed ZnO Thick Films

We explore the compositional, morphological and structural properties of ZnO thick films prepared by a standard screen printing method and fired between 650°C to 900°C for 2 hours in an air atmosphere. The material characterization was done using X-ray energy dispersive analysis (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The deposited films were polycrystalline in nature having the wurtzite (hexagonal) structure with a preferred orientation along the (101) plane. The result shows that the wt. % of Zn was found to be 80.39, 82.66 and 83.47% for firing temperatures of 700, 800 and 900°C respectively may be due to the release of excess oxygen. The effect of the firing temperature on structural parameters such as the crystallite size, texture coefficient, RMS microstrain, dislocation density and stacking fault probability have been studied. The results indicate that grain growth can be increased by increasing the firing temperature which is responsible for decreasing the RMSmicrostrain, stacking fault probability and dislocation density in ZnO thick films. The crystallite size changes from 18.58 nm to 37. 23 nm with respect to the increase in the firing temperature.