Optical and Electrical Properties of Chemically Deposited CulnS2 Thin Films

Abstract

The study of thin films of materials in recent years has greatly interest of material scientists due to discovery of new device applications in industry and medical science. CuinS2 was chosen because the constituent materials are plentiful and easily obtained in the required purities.

In the present work, a brief account about the equipment and the

techniques employed for the production of CuinS2 thin films by two methods (chemical bath deposition and thermal evaporation under high

vacuum) . This is followed by describing the procedure of measuring the characteristics of the films obtained by the above techniques. The techniques employed for estimating the film thickness, the microstructure and opto-electronic properties were given. The effect of heat treatment on these properties and the theoretical calculation of the relative intensity of the diffraction lines of CuinS2 films were studied. A comparison of the experimental , ASTM and calculated relative intensities show little

difference.

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The chemical deposition technique give x-ray powder diffraction of CulnS2 single phase with chalcopyrite structure. The film thickness increased by increasing the number of runs in fresh solution. The x-ray diffractogram of these films show a difference between thin and thick films.

Thin films still amorphous or composed of very fine grains up to - 500 I< . The heat treated• of these films (heating temperature - 673 k' ) show a pronounced diffraction peak corresponding to the (112) plane besides (013), (004) and (020) planes.