Deposition of rod-shaped antimony sulfide thin films from single-source antimony thiosemicarbazone precursors

Antimony sulfide thin films were deposited on glass substrates by aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition technique using single source precursors, namely, antimony(III) thiosemicarbazones, SbCl3(L) (L = thiosemicarbazones of thiophene-2-carboxaldehyde (1) and cinnamaldehyde (2)). The deposited films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis and UV-visible spectroscopy in order to identify their phases, morphologies, compositions and optical properties respectively. These characterizations revealed that the films were comprised of rod-shaped particles of orthorhombic stibnite (Sb2S3) with a Sb:S stoichiometry of ∼ 1:1.3. The calculated optical band gap from UV-vis absorption spectrum is found to be 3.48 eV.