Structural, morphological, optical and electrical properties of spray deposited ternary CdAgS thin films towards optoelectronic applications

Abstract

The effect of Ag doping on some physical properties of CdS thin films prepared by spray technique using perfume atomiser on glass substrates is reported in this paper. The doped films exhibit polycrystalline nature with hexagonal crystal structure similar to that of the undoped film. A (0 0 2) preferential orientation is observed for all the films. The presence of nanoneedles is evinced for the doped films from the SEM images. All the films have high transparency of nearly 80% in the visible region. The optical band gaps of the doped films exhibit a red shift from 2.44 to 2.23 eV which was attributed to Moss–Burstein (MB) effect. All the films have resistivity in the order of 10−2 Ω-cm, and with Ag doping it is found to decrease. The obtained results infer that the CdAgS thin films are well suited for optoelectronic applications.