Publication date: 11th March 2026
Nickel oxide (NiO) thin films have attracted significant attention due to their excellent electrical and optoelectronic properties, high chemical stability, and wide band gap. These films have numerous applications, including sensors, displays, catalysts, and solar cells. Various methods have been employed to fabricate NiO thin films; among them, atomic layer deposition (ALD) is recognized as a highly precise and versatile technique for fabricating uniform, conformal, and high-quality films.
In this work, a novel ALD process for NiO thin films was developed using 1-dimethylamino-2-methyl-2-propanolate (Ni(dmamp)₂) as the nickel precursor and O₃ as the oxidant. Depositions were carried out over a temperature range of 60–325 °C with the highest growth per cycle (GPC) of approximately 0.32 Å at 200 °C. The crystal structure, surface morphology, and roughness of the ALD NiO films deposited on silicon substrates were studied using grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. The results confirm that the NiO films exhibit high crystallinity even at low deposition temperatures, along with low surface roughness.
The optical properties of ALD NiO films deposited on soda lime glass substrates were investigated using UV–Vis spectroscopy, and the optical band gap was determined to be 3.89 eV. Electrical properties, including resistivity and hole concentration, were measured using a Hall-effect measurement system configured according to the Van der Pauw method. Typical p-type semiconducting behavior was evident.
Furthermore, the ALD NiO films were employed as hole transport layers (HTLs) in inverted perovskite solar cell (PSC) architectures. Characterization of PSCs incorporating post-deposition annealed ALD NiO layers with thicknesses ranging from 7.5 to 12.5 nm demonstrated a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of approximately 13.1%, with an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.02 V and a fill factor (FF) of 59.3%, along with negligible current–voltage hysteresis.
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