Effect of substrate temperature on structural, optical, and photoelectrochemical properties of Tl₂S thin films fabricated using AACVD technique

Abstract

Thin films of thallium sulphide (Tl2S) were grown on the FTO surface at three different temperatures (500°C, 550°C, and 600°C) using the aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition approach. A thallium diethyldithiocarbamate (Tl[CNS2(C2H5)3]) complex was used as a single-source precursor in tetrahydrofuran (THF) solvent under an inert atmosphere of argon in all deposition experiments. The impact of deposition temperature on structural, morphological, and optical properties of Tl2S thin films was explored using different experimental techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron (FESEM) microscopy, and UV-visible spectrophotometry. XRD analysis specifies that crystallite size varies from 120 to 90 nm with the increase in temperature from 500°C to 600°C. FESEM results revealed that Tl2S films were grown as hexagonal, petals, and marigold flower-like particles at 500°C, 550°C, and 600°C, respectively. UV-visible spectrophotometric analysis shows a decrease in band gap energies with temperature: 1.92 eV at 500°C, 1.72 eV at 550°C, and 1.42 eV at 600°C. The photoelectrochemical measurement in terms of linear sweep voltammetry confirms that the temperature variation has a significant effect on the photoconversion efficiency of Tl2S thin films, and photocurrent density increases from 0.56 to 0.76 mA·cm−2 when the temperature is increased from 500°C to 600°C.

Deposition Temperature as a Crucial Process Parameter in Tuning the CO2 Sensing Properties of Spary-Pyrolyzed SnO2 Thin Film

“…12 Daraz et al demonstrated that the photoelectrochemical measurement in terms of linear sweep voltammetry confirms that the temperature variation has a significant effect on the photoconversion efficiency of Thalium Sulphide Thin films, and photocurrent density increases with deposition temperature. 13 Mansoor et al demonstrated that the Ceramic composite CdO-Mn 2 O 3 composite thin film semiconductor electrode exhibits n-type behaviour and the photocurrent density was found to be dependent on the deposition medium. 14 Among the versatile methods for the production of thin film gas sensors, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21] spray pyrolysis is the most convenient method because of its simplicity, low cost, easiness of adding doping materials, and the possibility of varying the film properties by changing composition of starting solution.…”