Abstract
Tin monosulphide (SnS) films have been successfully grown by a simple and low-cost wet chemical process, chemical bath deposition (CBD), using tin chloride and thioacetamide as precursors and tartaric acid as complexing agent. The layers were grown on glass substrate at different bath temperatures (Tb) that varied in the range 50–70°C. The energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) studies showed that all the grown films were nearly stoichiometric. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the films had an intense peak at 31.6° that corresponds to the (111) plane of SnS and exhibited orthorhombic crystal structure. The intensity of (111) plane increases with the increase in bath temperature and became sharp at Tb=70°C, where the other crystal planes got suppressed, this indicates better crystallinity of the layers grown at this temperature. No other secondary phases of tin sulphide were observed. The structural parameters such as lattice constants and crystallite size were also calculated. The optical studies revealed that the layers had high optical absorption coefficient (>104 cm−1). The energy band gap was found to be allowed and direct and varied between 1.30 eV and 1.35 eV. The band gap decreased with the rise in bath temperature. The refractive index and the extinction coefficient were also evaluated. The details of these results will be presented and discussed.
Highlights
The IV–VI group of semiconductors have a significant role to play in the fabrication of photovoltaic devices [1–7] because of their suitable characteristics like high optical transmittance/ absorbance, energy band gap, and control over electrical properties
SnS layers were grown by a wet chemical method, chemical bath deposition (CBD), by a simple, economically cheap, nontoxic, and environmentally friendly complexing agent and buffer solution, “tartaric acid,” instead of other commonly used reagents because of its dual role in the chemical reaction to minimize experimental difficulties and to get best quality films at different bath temperatures
SnS films were grown using the chemical bath containing tin and sulphur precursors (SnCl2⋅2H2O; C2H5NS) at 0.1 M and 0.6 M concentrations, respectively, 1 mL of tartaric acid, few drops of concentrated hydrochloric acid (HCl), and sufficient quantity of double distilled water to make up 50 mL of the reaction bath
Summary
The IV–VI group of semiconductors have a significant role to play in the fabrication of photovoltaic devices [1–7] because of their suitable characteristics like high optical transmittance/ absorbance, energy band gap, and control over electrical properties. SnS layers were grown by a wet chemical method, chemical bath deposition (CBD), by a simple, economically cheap, nontoxic, and environmentally friendly complexing agent and buffer solution, “tartaric acid,” instead of other commonly used reagents because of its dual role in the chemical reaction (complexing agent and pH value regulator) to minimize experimental difficulties and to get best quality films at different bath temperatures. The properties of these layers were investigated and reported
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