Structural and optical characteristics of NiO films deposited using the PLD technique

NiO films were deposited on glass and Si(100) substrates by reactive pulsed laser deposition from the Ni target. Nd: YAG laser (1064 nm) was used. The oxygen pressure was between 0.05 and 0.3 Torr. The optimum conditions for a good-quality NiO film are an oxygen pressure of 0.1 Torr and a laser power of 410 mW. Preferred orientation changes from (200) to (220) and D decreases from 27 to & SIM;9 nm as the temperature increases from 200 to 300 & DEG;C. The preferred orientation changes into (111), nanoparticles size reduces from 46 to 26 nm and D drops from 27 to 10 nm as laser power increases from 410 to 820 mW. The oxygen pressure is significantly affecting the composition and morphologies of the NiO films. The optical band gap was 3.35 eV.