Physical and electrical characteristics of low-temperature annealed spin coated zinc oxide thin films on Teflon substrates

The structural, and electrical properties of ZnO thin films deposited by sol-gel spin coating technique, onto polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) and glass substrates have been investigated. 0.4M sol were prepared by using Zinc acetate dehydrate as precursor, monoethanolamine as stabilizer and 2-methoxyethanol as solvent. The thin films were annealed at 200°C, 250°C and 300°C. This annealing process was performed in every layer. Electrical characterization shows the conductivity of the films deposited onto Teflon substrates that annealed at 200°C, 250°C and 300°C were around 0.176, 0.0988, and 0.0952 S cm-1 respectively. On the other hand, for the thin films deposited on glass substrates, these values are 0.187, 0.139 and 0.126 S cm-1 for similar variation in the annealing temperature. The conductivity of the ZnO thin films on glass substrate was higher than those on Teflon substrates. FESEM images confirmed that microstructure of the thin films on both substrate consists of nanoparticles.