https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06672-8
Regular Article
Impact of solution molarity on structural and optical properties of sol–gel derived WO3 thin films
1
Department of Physics, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080, Trabzon, Turkey
2
Department of Physics, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, 53100, Rize, Turkey
Received:
15
May
2025
Accepted:
18
July
2025
Published online:
4
September
2025
In this study, WO3 thin films were successfully grown on p-type Si at five different concentrations, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25 M, using the sol–gel method. The results were characterized structurally, morphologically and optically. Structural and morphological measurements confirmed the successful coating of thin films, while optical characterizations were carried out with reflectance, transmittance and absorption analyses depending on molarity. As a result of the reflectance measurements, the lowest reflectance ratio of 11.88% was obtained in WO3 thin films with 0.2 M concentration. Considering the reflectance ratio of 39.16% on the uncoated silicon surface, this result shows a decrease in reflectance of approximately 70%. WO3 thin films exhibited high absorption properties, especially in the UV region, with increasing molarity, while exhibiting high optical transmittance in the wavelength range of 450–1000 nm. The band gap values obtained from the transmittance curves showed an increasing trend in the range of 0.10–0.25 M with the effect of increasing molarity, and a band gap value of 2.53 eV was obtained for the 0.20 M WO3 thin films determined as optimum.
Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
