Synthesis of Nanostructured CuO Film by an Amalgamation of Sol-gel and Screen-printing using Copper (II) Acetate as Precursor

In this work, we report the synthesis of a nanostructured CuO film by combining the screen-printing method with the sol-gel technique. The synthesized film was sintered at an optimized temperature of 500°C. The microstructure of the sintered film was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The results showed the formation of a single-phase, polycrystalline, and stoichiometric CuO film with a monoclinic structure. The FTIR spectrum suggests that CuO film was successfully formed. The UV-visible spectroscopy was used to examine the optical properties of the film, which revealed a direct optical band gap (Eg) of about 1.9 eV and an approximate 60% transmittance in the visible range. Electrical characterization (DC resistivity) was performed using a two-probe technique, confirming the semiconducting nature of the CuO film with an activation energy of 0.20 eV. The findings suggest that CuO films are suitable for use in a wide range of optical and electronic devices.