Abstract
Nickel oxide films were prepard by using the electron beam evaporation technique. Coloring and bleaching experiments for cyclic durability were repeated in KOH electrolyte by cyclic voltammetry. Visible spectrophtometry was used to assess the stability of the transmittance in the degraded films. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that the grain surface are oxygen-rich compared to the grain interiors in a NiO film. Open circuit memory of colored films is about 400hours in lN KOH. The rate of self discharge was evaluated by measuring the transmittance at 550nm of a fully oxidized NiO film. The rate of self discharge was increased polynomially with time and the film is nearly bleached after about 400hours. It was also found that the degraded film by repeated cycles in the KOH solution changed the grain shape of film surface The film prepared under a vacuum pressure of $3\times10^{-4}$ mbar was found to be rather stable when subjected to the repeated coloring and bleaching cycles in KOH electrolyte. Band theory applied to explain the electrochromic mechanism was discussed.
