Electrical and photovoltaic characteristics of Ni/(n)Bi2S3 Schottky barrier junction

• We have fabricated the Ni/Bi2S3 Schottky junction by chemical bath deposition method.
• The junction parameters calculated from the I–V characteristics are found to be temperature dependent.
• The photovoltaic property of the junction is very poor due to the presence of series resistance and other surface defects.

Ni doped nanocrystalline Bi2S3 thin films are chemically deposited on Fluorine Doped Tin Oxide (FTO) substrate from the solution containing Ni(NO3)2, Bi(NO3)3.5H2O, C6H15NO3 and CH2CS.NH2 at deposition temperature 318 K. The Current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of the junctions are measured in the temperature range 300–340 K and junction parameters are calculated. The ideality factor (n) and barrier height (ϕb) at different temperature are found to vary from 4.7 to 3.8 and 0.74 to 0.79 respectively. It is observed that the ideality factor decreases while the barrier height increases with increase of temperature. The calculated junction parameters are strongly temperature dependent. The discrepancy between the barrier height obtained from capacitance–voltage (C–V) and current–voltage (I–V) characteristics is analyzed. The carrier concentration determined from the C–V plot is found to be of the order 1017/cm3.