A Modified Chemical Route for Synthesis of Zirconia Thin Films Having Tunable

A modified chemical synthesis route is reported for deposition of zirconia thin films having tunable porosity with average pore size in nanometer range. Deposition method is simply a sol-gel dip coating in which HCl is used as catalyst. TEM and FTIR studies of deposited films show porous microstructure, which depends critically on ageing of sol used. The shift in binding energy of Zr 3d5/2 (at 182.4 eV) attributes the formation of zirconia. Optical results show high transmittance (> 80%) in VIS-NIR region and effective refractive indices values (neff) tend to decrease for films prepared with higher aged sol. Porosity enhancement from 15-52 % is observed by neff comparing with refractive index of non porous films (nz)