Growth of manganese sulfide (α-MnS) thin films by thermal vacuum evaporation: Structural, morphological and optical properties

•α-MnS films were deposited on glass and quartz substrates using the thermal evaporation technique.•The effect of substrate temperature on the properties of the MnS films has been studied.•The factorial design was used to determine the most influence parameters.

MnS thin films have been successfully prepared by thermal evaporation method at different substrate temperatures using different masses of MnS powder. The prepared films were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and UV–visible spectrophotometry. The XRD measurements show that the films crystallized in the pure α-MnS for substrate temperatures above 100 °C. The optical bandgap of thin films is found to be in the range of 3.2–3.3 eV. A factorial experimental design was used for determining the influence of the two experimental parameters on the films growth.

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