Synthesis and characterization of CoCuMnOx spinel ceramic thin films for spectral selectivity absorption

Abstract

CoCuMnO_x ceramic films were deposited onto stainless steel (SS) substrates by a convenient and innovative aqueous solution chemical method. With this approach, the ubiquitous, inexpensive, and nontoxic water acting as a green solvent was employed to dissolve metal salts, chelating agent, and wetting agent, all of which are low-cost and available commercially. The obtained aqueous solution precursor, showed long-term stability and reproducibility, and could be utilized to prepare CoCuMnO_x ceramic films for solar absorber applications. X-ray diffraction (XRD) peaks of the ceramic thin film that was annealed at 450 °C for 1 h corresponded to that of crystalline CoCuMnO_x in the JCPDS database. Then, the influence of deposition parameters such as annealing temperature and withdrawal speed on chemical ingredients, film thickness, surface features, and optical properties of the ceramic films was investigated in detail. The result indicated that CoCuMnO_x ceramic films exhibited a good spectral selectivity, which was obtained at a 500 °C annealing temperature with different withdrawal speeds. Subjected to an accelerated thermal stability test at 246 °C, the prepared ceramic films showed excellent thermally stability and performance criterion (PC) values below 0.05.