Influence of spray flux density on the photocatalytic activity and certain physical properties of ZnO thin films

This paper reports the effect of spray flux density on the photocatalytic activity of sprayed ZnO thin films towards the Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation, for the first time. In addition, the influence of annealing on the photocatalytic activity of ZnO film is studied and reported. It was found that, the change in spray flux density helps in tuning the surface morphology, crystalline quality and the concentration of oxygen vacancies (V_O) and zinc interstitials (Zn_i) which are crucial factors that can control the photocatalytic activity of deposited samples. The photocatalytic study shows that the samples prepared from higher spray flux density possess high efficiency for degradation of RhB. As these samples require only lower deposition time, this result may be useful in reducing the time consumed in large area production of photocatalytic thin films.