Properties of nanoscale copper oxide thin film deposited by plasma focus device

In this study a 2 kj mather type plasma focus device was employed to deposit copper oxide (cuo) nanoscale thin film at room temperature on the glass substrate. the anode of the device was made of copper alloys. a mixture of oxygen and argon (o2+ar) gases was used as the working gas for cuo deposition. cuo nanostructures were formed on the glass substrate by 25 shots at 9 cm above the anode and 0° angle with respect to the anode axis. according to the xrd results, the crystallite size of the cuo thin film is between 64 and 122 nm. fesem images show that the growth nanostructures on the surface of the film are almost clusters with the average size of 80 nm. uv-vis spectroscopy results indicate that the transmittance of the deposited cuo thin films in the uv region is very low. the bandgapenergy and refraction index of the film are 1.8 ev and 1.9, respectively. the i–v diagram shows that as the applied voltage increases, the current intensity increases exponentially. four-probe method shows that the electrical surface resistance of cuo thin film is in the range of 680 ωcm, and their dc conductivity is about 13.2 s/m.