Investigation on the AC and DC electrical conductivity of Sn3Sb2S6 thin films prepared by glancing angle deposition

Abstract

Sn3Sb2S6 thin films were deposited by single source vacuum thermal evaporation using glancing angle deposition technique. The incident angle α between the particle flux and the normal to the substrate was varied from 0° to 85°. The structural, morphological and electrical properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and impedance spectroscopy, respectively. The effect of these properties as a function of the incident angle has been studied. The AC conductivity exhibited a Jonscher’s universal power law. It is observed that exponent s decreases with increasing measurement temperature. Further analysis revealed that, samples AC conductivity follows the correlated barrier hopping model. The Cole–Cole plot showed a single semicircle, indicating an equivalent circuit with a single parallel resistor R and capacitance C network. The activation energy obtained from both angular relaxation frequency and DC conductivity suggests that the carrier transport mechanism is a hopping mechanism thermally activated in the band gap.