J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.
1 (3), 200-205 (2011)
Optical Study of Cadmium Sulphide Thin Film Prepared
by Chemical Bath Deposition
B. S. BHADORIA, RAMA SHANKER YADAV and AKANKSHA SRIVASTAVA
Department of Physics, Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, (U.P.)-284128 India.
email: ramaphysics09@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The Cadmium Sulphide is window material for solar cells. The
thin films of CdS were deposited on glass substrate by chemical
bath deposition techniques. The results from X-ray diffraction and
optical absorption coefficient are used to characterize the thin
film. This study represent that the growth of CdS-CBD thin film is
controlled by pH, temperature, time of dipping and concentration
of material. The dependence of energy band gap on the film
thickness is also represented. This study will provide the future
aspects for the solar energy storage using different doping
materials in order to remove the toxicity.
Keywords-: Chemical bath deposition, XRD, Energy band gap.
1. INTRODUCTION
Thin Cadmium Sulphide (CdS)
films have been used in industries
predominantly in solar cells. The best solar
cells based on Cu(InGa)Se2 (CIGS)
absorbers are achieved by using a very thin
(50 nm) CdS buffer layer deposited by
chemical bath deposition (CBD). The CBD
technique has been used for the preparation
of CdS/CdTe in high conversion efficiency
(16%) in solar cell8. Among various
techniques that can be used for the
preparation of thin CdS films (thermal
evaporation, chemical spray, electro
deposition and sputtering), CBD is a simple
which is also used to deposited the
semiconductor on photovoltaic device.
The CBD method appears suitable
for large area industrial process because it is
the least expensive and a low temperature
method. Another advantage of the CBD
technique is its ability to deposit very thin
films (50 nm) in a conformal manner on a
rough substrate surface. The rate of growth
in CBD is controllable by pH, temperature,
time of dipping and the relative
concentrations of the reactants in the bath
solution. The alkaline bath solution (pH > 9)
normally consists of a cadmium salt,
thiourea [SC(NH2)2], NH4OH and a
complexing agent such as NH4Cl and TEA7.
The CdS thin film has a high visible
transmittance and near IR reflectance4. The
mechanics and growth kinetics of CdS thin
film, from alkaline bath containing the Cd
Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 3, 30 April, 2011, Pages (162-211)
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B. S. Bhadoria, et al., J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (3), 200-205 (2011)
salts and thiourea, have been studied in order
to obtain good quality, used in
manufacturing solar cell, optoelectronic
devices and photo conducting sensors etc.
The optoelectrical properties of thin film are
influenced by the film microstructure which
depends on the preparation parameters and
post deposition conditions as annealing,
cleaning etc. The effect of the solution
composition and temperature on the optical
absorption coefficient, resistively and energy
band gap is considerable8. Thermal
annealing in different atmospheres reduces
the energy band gap. The electrical
resistively that can vary over several orders
of magnitude, depends not only on the
doping level, but also on the film
microstructure and thickness.
(CH3COO)2 and 0.5M H2NSCNH2 in
deionized water were prepared separately.
These solutions were heated to a temperature
between 60-90C, and then ammonia water
was added to the cadmium acetate solution
to maintain the pH value in the range
between7-10. Before mixing the thiourea
solution into the cadmium acetate solution to
start the growth of CdS film, a sodalime
glass substrate was dipped into the cadmium
acetate solution. The film was deposited in
0.5 to 20 minute and then the substrate was
pulled out from the solution and was dried
after cleaning ultrasonically in deionized
water. The pH value and the temperature of
the solution were monitored using a pH
meter and mercury thermometer.
2(a) - Effect of pH
2. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
Chemical bath deposition is a useful
method for obtaining a very thin CdS films
as a buffer layer in a window of a thin film
solar cell because it is inherently a low
temperature process which does not damage
the surface of the thin film as an absorber
during deposition and can be applied to be
rough one.
CdS films were deposited from a
particular bath and their structure, optical
and optoelectrical characteristics were
measured with the aim of finding the
correlation between the optoelectrical and
the
microstructure
parameters.
The
deposition of CDS thin film is carried in two
ways. First, the films were grown on sodalime glass substrates, in the temperature
range 7090C. The alkaline solution (pH
11) consists of CdCl2 (2mM), thiourea
(3mM), NH4OH (640mM) and NH4Cl
(15mM) Second, Solution of 0.2M Cd
The variation of pH during the
growth is important in the structural film
quality and was observed experimentally. It
was found that, for low pH the Cd++ ion
concentration in solution is more due to less
complexation of Cd++ ions and the
homogeneous process takes place at slow
rate resulting in a lower thickness. At high
pH the Cd++ ion concentration is less due to
higher complexation but S-- ion concentration is more that gives higher deposition
rate5.
2(b) - Effect of Temperature
During the deposition of CdS film
on glass substrate using CBD, the
temperature is varied from 70-90C which
result the film deposition of various
thickness. The optimum temperature for the
better thin film deposition is 75C5.
Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 3, 30 April, 2011, Pages (162-211)
B. S. Bhadoria, et al., J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (3), 200-205 (2011)
2(c) - Band Gap Calculation
The optical spectrum of a
semiconductor generally exhibits a sharp
rise a certain values of incident
ncident photon
energy for the calculation of band gap, the
transmittance of the deposited CdS thin film
is calculated for different wavelength of
incident radiation. This may be done with
the help of spectrophotometer. The
absorption of the film is calcula
calculated using the
20% reflection. The value of absorption per
unit thickness is calculated for the given
reflection and transmittance. The photon
energy for direct band gap material is given
by the following equation.
The graph is plotted between energy
and square of the product of absorption &
energy for the direct band gap material and
the intercept of the slope with energy axis
provide the band gap of the material.
2(d) - Thickness Calculation
The band gap of the thin film is
calculated with UV-1800
1800 spectrophotometer
202
and it is compared with bulk material. The
difference provide the confinement applied
on material so the thickness of thin film is
determined by following formulaformula
Where is thee translational mass of CdS
material and L is the thickness of CdS thin
film.
3. RESULT & DISCUSSION
The optical properties of chemical
bath deposited CdS thin films were
investigated using the spectrophotometer
UV-1800.
1800. The transmittance was observed
for the thin film for various temperature,
different pH and time of dipping of the
substrate in the solution. The transmittance
and absorption of CdS thin film for the
different temperature at constant time of
dipping is shown in figure 1(a, b) and 2(a, b)
respectively.
Figure 1(a, b):- Transmittance - Wavelength graph for CdS thin film at diff. dipping time.
Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 3, 30 April, 2011, Pages (162--211)
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B. S. Bhadoria, et al., J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (3), 200-205 (2011)
Figure 2(a, b):- Absorption - Wavelength graph for CdS thin film at diff. dipping time.
The variation of band gap for CdS thin film
at pH=8 and dipping time 10 min for
different temperature (70C, 80C, 90C) is
shown in figure 3. The nature of graph is
nearly exponential and band gap at 80C is
found to be approximate
roximate 2.3eV. It can be
seen that this graph is the strong function of
temperature at higher range.
Figure 3:- Band gap variation for CdS thin film at different temperature.
Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 3, 30 April, 2011, Pages (162--211)
B. S. Bhadoria, et al., J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (3), 200-205 (2011)
The XRDs are taken for the study of the
structure of material deposited on the
material (Tem= 80C, pH=8 & deposition
time 10min). The first peak in XRD is
mainly due to noise hence it can be ignored
204
and the calculation form second and third
peaks sows thatt the material is nearly cubic
structure with plane (111) and (220). The
lattice constant for the plane (111) is 5.77A
and for the plane (220) is 5.82A.
Figure 4:- XRD of CdS thin film
4. CONCLUSION
We have successfully deposited the
good quality thin films of CdS by CBD
technique on commercial glass substrate.
The preparation parameters as temperature,
pH, time of deposition and concentration
play important role in the process of
deposition
on of thin films and it affects the
deposition rate. The observed band gap of
the CdS is 2.4 - 2.5eV approximately for all
time of deposition. The thin film is
characterized by the XRD and photo
spectrometer techniques. The XRD data
shows the cubic structure
re of CdS thin film.
The obtained results can be useful for the
starting point for the synthesis and
processing of multilayer films solar cells
applications.
Journal of Pure Applied and Industrial Physics Vol.1, Issue 3, 30 April, 2011, Pages (162--211)
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B. S. Bhadoria, et al., J. Pure Appl. & Ind. Phys. Vol.1 (3), 200-205 (2011)
5. ACNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Prof.
Rajaram, Jiwaji University, Gwalior, for his
valuable suggestions & discussion and Dr. P.
N. Dwivedi, IIT Kanpur, for providing XRD
facilities.
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