The investigation of electrodeposited Cu2O/ITO layers by chronocoulometry process: effect of electrical potential

Abstract

The thin films of Cu2O are deposited by electrodeposition technique onto indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrate at different potentials. The precursor is an aqueous solution which contains respectively 0.05 M of CuSO4 and citric acid at kept temperature of 60 degrees C and the applied potential varies within the {-0: 4 V, -0: 7 V} SCE range. Based on the chronocoulometry (CC) process, the electrochemical, structural and optical parameters are determined. We measured the current as function of potential within the {-0.4 V, -0.7 V} range and the higher current is found to be within the {-0.7 V, -0.3 V} band. The grain sizes are of 12.12 nm and 35.47 nm according to (110) and (221) orientations respectively. The high textural coefficient of 0.943 is recorded for the potential -0.7 V. The transmittance of 72.25 %, within the visible band, is obtained for the as-grown layer at -0.4 V and the band gap is found to be 2.2 eV for the electrodeposition potential of -0.7 V.