Ammonia free growth of CdS thin films by Chemical Bath Technique

Abstract

CdS thin films were deposited by a chemical bath deposition technique (CBD). The bath solution is composed of CdCl2 (0.1 M) salt as a source for Cd and thiourea (0.1M) as a source of sulphur (S). To avoid the toxicity and volatility of the commonly used ammonia, ethanolamine (ETA ) is used as complexing agent. Films were deposited with different times from 30 to 120 minutes in order to study the films growth mechanism. The solution temperature was fixed at 60°C. The structural and morphological films characterizations were carried by XRD analysis and AFM observations. From the XRD analysis we inferred that obtained CdS films have a pure hexagonal structure with the preferential orientation along the plane (101). The pure hexagonal structure is highly recommended for the realization of CdTe/ CdS or CuInSe/CdS solar cells. The presence of the hexagonal structure and the low growth rate in order of 1nm/min suggest that the growth mechanism is achieved through the ion by ion process. The optical characterization result indicates that the obtained films have a high transparency from 80 to 60 % in the visible range. In conclusion we inferred that CBD ammonia free CdS thin films deposition enables the production of films suitable for photovoltaic applications.