Structural and thermal properties of nanocrystalline CuO synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering

Recent research has shown immense application of metal oxides like CuO, MgO, CaO, Al2O3, etc. in different areas which includes chemical warfare agents, medical drugs, magnetic storage media and solar energy transformation. Among the metal oxides, CuO nanoparticles are of special interest because of their excellent gas sensing and catalytic properties. In this paper we report structural and thermal properties of CuO synthesized by reactive magnetron DC sputtering. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffractometer. The XRD result reveals that as DC power increased from 30W to 80W, size of the CuO nanoparticles increased. The same results have been verified through TEM analysis. Thermal properties of these particles were studied using thermogravimetry.