Effects of copper doping and annealing on the structure and optical properties of ZnxCdx-1S thin films

Abstract

Effect of copper doping and thermal annealing on the structural and optical properties of Zn0.5Cd0.5S thin films prepared by chemical spray pyrolysis have been studied. Depositions were done at 250°C on glass substrate. The structural properties and surface morphology of deposited films were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photomicroscope (PHM) techniques. XRD studies reveal that all films are crystalline tetragonal structure. The film crystallinity are increased with 1% Cu-doping concentration and also increased for the films annealed at 300°C than the other studied cases. The lattice constant 'a' and 'c' varies with doping concentrations from 5.487Å to 5.427Å and 10.871Å to 10.757Å respectively. The grain size attained maximum value of 24 nm. Films thicknesses results were between 1 and 2 μm. The optical characteristics of the prepared thin films have been investigated by UV-VIS spectrophotometer in a wavelength ranging (300-1100) nm. The energy band gap of the films decreased linearly with increase of Cu-doping concentration and annealing temperature which varied from 2.4 eV to 2.48 eV.