Optical Properties of Dc Electrochemically Deposited Co3o4 Thin Films

The present work reports the preparation of pure cubic-spinel Co3O4 films with. better optical properties on thoroughly cleaned copper substrates by using electrochemical deposition technique with Co(NO3)(2)center dot 6H(2)O as Co precursor. The resultant films are characterized by using XRD, UV-Visible spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy and SEM techniques. The characterization results revealed that the resultant films are constituted with Co3O4 particles (sizes in the range of 1-3 mu m) with cubic-spinel symmetry. The resultant films showed the better values of absorptance (alpha) = 0.97 and emittance (epsilon) = 0.05 as compared to the reported data. The band gap energy values of resultant are Co3O4 films are found to be in range of 1.189-1.400 eV. The films prepared in the present work might be useful for solar absorption selective coating applications.