Influence of Bath Temperature on the Properties of In2S3 Films Grown by Chemical Bath Deposition

In2S3 films were deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD) method on glass substrates using indium sulphate and thioacetamide (TA) as precursors and acetic acid as the complexing agent. The films were grown by varying the bath temperature (Tb) from 50 °C to 90 °C, keeping concentration of indium precursor at a constant value of 0.025 M and thioacetamide concentration at 0.1 M for a fixed deposition time of 60 min. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies revealed that the deposited films were nanocrystalline in nature and showed the (311) peak as preferred orientation, exhibiting cubic structure. The Raman studies revealed that the grown layers were free from secondary phases. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies indicated smooth morphology at lower temperatures that changed in to granular structure at higher temperatures. Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) revealed a change of composition from sulfur deficient to sulfur rich at a bath temperature of 70 °C. The optical measurements showed that the films had a maximum transmittance of >85% in the visible region. The evaluated energy band of the layers varied in the range, 2.36 2.74 eV with the change of bath temperature. A detailed study of the results were presented and discussed.