Chemical Synthesis and Characterization of nickel oxide as semiconductor thin film and doping agent of titanium dioxide

Nickel oxide (NiO) is a p-type semiconductor [1], is an important material because of its large direct optical gap between 3.6 and 4.0 eV [2], of its chemical stability and magnetic device[3] ,  and easy to deposit in thin film by several chemical techniques. However, it used as a dopant of titanium dioxide. NiO thin films were deposited by spray pyrolysis on ordinary glass substrates heated to a fixed temperature of 500 °C, from a nickel nitrate hexahydrate as a precursor dissolved in distilled water. Titanium dioxide is doped with deferent percentage of NiO, this latter was elaborate with the sol-gel method. The both type of thin film, were characterized by several techniques, Such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, optical absorption, Atomic force microscopy ,and Raman spectroscopy.