Structural and optical properties of amorphous Sb2S3 thin films deposited by vacuum thermal evaporation method

A green and facile hydrothermal approach for the synthesis of high-quality semi-conducting Sb2S3 thin films

“…The Eg of the Sb2S3 film obtained in this work were further compared with that of the Sb2S3 films prepared by other reported methods and the results were summarized in Table 2. The data revealed that the obtained Sb2S3 film annealed at 450 ºC demonstrated a narrow Eg of 1.63 eV, which was remarkably lower than that of the Sb2S3 films prepared by other conventional methods, including chemical spray pyrolysis (Eg of 1.80 ~ 2.10 eV) [7,31,32], chemical bath deposition (Eg of 1.70 ~ 2.24 eV) [9,11,17,33], vacuum thermal evaporation (Eg of 1.78 ~ 1.98 eV) [8,34], and electrodeposition (Eg of 1.86 eV) [10]. These results suggested that the hydrothermal approach in this work was efficient to synthesize high-quality Sb2S3 films as the absorber layer material for high-performance solar cells.…”

“…Chemical spray pyrolysis SbCl3+CS(NH2)2+CH3COOH 1.88 [7] Chemical spray pyrolysis SbCl3+CS(NH2)2+CH3COOH 1.80 [31] Vacuum thermal evaporation Sb + S 1.78 [8] Vacuum thermal evaporation Sb + S 1.85 [34] Chemical bath deposition SbCl3 +Na2S2O3+CH3COCH3 2.24 [17] Chemical bath deposition SbCl3 +Na2S2O3+CH3COCH3 2.30 [11] Chemical bath deposition SbCl3 +Na2S2O3+CH3COCH3 1.70 [9] Chemical bath deposition with annealing SbCl3 +Na2S2O3+CH3COCH3 1.73 [33] Electrodeposition SbCl3 +Na2S2O3+C10H16N2O8 1.86 [10] Hydrothermal with annealing at 250 ºC KSbC4H4O7 + Na2S2O3 …”

Structural, Optical, and Electrical Properties of Applied Amorphized and Polycrystalline Sb2S3 Thin Films

“…The first energy gap indicates the direct optical transition, whereas the second confirms amorphous phase of the thin film. [22,24] It should be emphasized here that our previous experimental and theoretical work confirms the direct transition [26] for crystalline samples, so in that sense we can expect an indirect transition for the amorphized sample (the Kubelka-Munk function for the indirect transition also gives way to two indirect allowed transitions of 1.7 and 1.54 eV). Another fact worth mentioning is that the synthesized amorphous Sb 2 S 3 spherical sample that we used to obtain thin films (by spraying and heating) has a band gap 1.4 and 1.2 for direct and indirect allowed transition, respectively.…”

“…This type of behavior has also been observed in many other chalcogenides. [35] So far, the reported optical band gap energies for Sb 2 S 3 thin films are in the range 1.67 to 2.57 eV [16,[18][19][20][21][22]24] generally obtained before and after annealing, respectively. Figure 4 shows the room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra of both Sb 2 S 3 amorphized (A) and polycrystalline thin films in the energy range of 2.4 to 1.5 eV, respectively.…”

“…The thin film semiconductor Sb 2 S 3 which has been used so far, mostly in dye sensitized solar cells, was derived from a solution of SbCl 3 and Na 2 S 2 O 3 [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] or for its 'application in photoelectrochemical cells, from a solution of SbCl 3 and CS(NH 2 ) 2 . [15][16][17] Generally, the thin films of the Sb 2 S 3 semiconductor reported in the literature were obtained from a solution of SbCl 3 and Na 2 S 2 O 3 , [18][19][20][21] from the elements antimony Sb and sulfur S [22] or via the thermal vacuum evaporation technique from a polycrystalline Sb 2 S 3 powder. [23,24] A unique chemical deposition technique based on an aqueous ammonia bath containing potassium antimony tartrate, triethanolamine, and thioacetamide has been developed by Savadogo and Mandal.…”