Characterization and third harmonic generation calculations of undoped and doped spin-coated multilayered CuO thin films

The paper presents the physical characterizations of undoped and (Sn, Mn, Fe and In) doped Cupric Oxide (CuO) thin films prepared by sol-gel spin-coating process. The first aim of the work is to investigate the relation between the electrical resistivity and the third order nonlinear optical susceptibility of pure deposited CuO films, second is to explore the impact of introducing diverse dopants on the nonlinear optical responses. In this study, we demonstrate that we can control the electrical and also the nonlinear optical properties of the obtained structure using a different number of deposited layers. Moreover, the influence of doping due to variations in the microstructure and morphology is examined and discussed. •Structural, morphological and optical properties of undoped and doped CuO films were studied.•Effect of the thickness and relation between electrical and nonlinear optical properties were investigated.•Impact of doping on the structural, morphological the nonlinear optical properties was discussed.•Liaison between the degradation in the structural and morphological properties and the third order nonlinear optical susceptibility responses was examined.