Investigation of photonic curing mechanisms of sol-gel zinc oxide films for flexible electronics

Photoannealing is a technological method that allows replacing the final high-temperature treatment of metal oxide sol-gel films with a combination of soft heating and ultraviolet irradiation. It has been established that an increase in temperature during heat treatment of the sol deposited on the substrate leads to the conversion of zinc acetate into layered basic zinc acetate (LBZA), which is transformed into hydroxide Zn(OH)2, which passes into amorphous oxide ZnO. It is shown that when heated to 130°C, parallel irradiation of films with UV radiation promotes the direct transition of LBZA into oxide due to the effective removal of hydroxyl and acetate groups. When the temperature is increased to 140°C, UV irradiation of films loses its expediency, since both photoannealing and heat treatment lead to identical properties of the studied materials.