Communication—Annealing Strategies for Spray Deposited Precursor Films of p-Type CuCr1-xMgxO2

Abstract

Annealing of sprayed pure and Mg doped CuCrO _2 thin films by high intensity, short time light irradiation leads to a single delafossite phase at comparatively low temperatures compared with traditional furnace annealing. P-type crystalline undoped and Mg-doped CuCrO _2 films were obtained within few minutes by annealing with halogen lamp between 550 °C and 650 °C in Ar atmosphere. Transport properties of Mg-doped thin films were comparable to furnace annealed samples despite much shorter annealing time. The results demonstrate that post-annealing of chemically deposited samples using light irradiation is an effective and fast method for obtaining transparent conducting delafossite thin films.

Keywords

• CuCrO2
• thin films
• spray pyrolysis
• light irradiation
• delafossites