@Article{CL.2025.227.561,
AUTHOR = {M. Abbas, M. Haseeb-u-Rehman, M. Sohail, G. H. Tariq},
TITLE = {Structural, optical and electrical properties of NiO thin films for hole transport layer in chalcogenide and perovskite materials based solar cells},
JOURNAL = {Chalcogenide Letters},
VOLUME = {22},
YEAR = {2025},
NUMBER = {7},
PAGES = {561--577},
URL = {http://www.techscience.com/CL/v22n7/64844},
ISSN = {1584-8663},
ABSTRACT = {This work presents the fabrication of NiO thin films via versatile sol-gel spin coating method 
and investigation of annealing effects on their physical properties. After the deposition 
process, the NiO thin films underwent annealing process at different values of temperatures 
ranging from 200°C to 350°C for one hour duration. XRD patterns confirmed the 
polycrystalline nature, along the preferred orientations (110) and (101) planes. 
Nanoparticles in NiO thin films demonstrated an increase in crystallite size with rising 
annealing temperatures, reaching a maximum size of 49 nm at annealing temperature 300°C. 
FTIR patterns revealed Ni-O bands at 472 cm<sup>-1</sup>
 in the far infrared region. UV spectroscopy 
showed that the average transmittance of the NiO thin films increases 91% to 94% as a result 
of increasing the temperature during annealing. While the band gap decreases and reaches 
the lowest value 3.94 eV at 300°C. The hot probe tests of the fabricated nickel oxide thin 
films verified their p-type nature while the four-point probe technique showed that 
resistivity decreases at higher annealing temperatures. Based on these enhancements of 
physical properties, NiO thin films could be suggested as promising candidates for hole 
transport layer applications in chalcogenide and perovskite materials based solar cells.},
DOI = {10.15251/CL.2025.227.561}
}