Growth of (111) Oriented CeO₂ Thin Films and Their Structural and Optical Properties

We report the oriented growth of single phase CeO₂ thin films using pulsed laser deposition technique and their structural and optical properties. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements confirm the (111) oriented growth of CeO₂ thin films on amorphous quartz substrates. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements supported the XRD measurements and depict the formation of larger sized crystallites in annealed films. UV-visible absorption spectra show significant red-shift in the absorption edge and hence, decrease in the band gap energy has been observed in annealed CeO₂ film. Raman mode intensity of F _{2 g} mode was observed to increase after heat treatment. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra show visible emission from both the samples of as-deposited and annealed CeO₂ films.