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Effect of sulphur pressure on properties of ZnS thin film prepared by chemical bath deposition technique

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Abstract

Zinc sulfide (ZnS) thin films have been prepared by chemical bath deposition followed by thermal annealing. The influence of sulphur (S) pressure on the morphological, structural and optical properties of the ZnS thin film has been investigated. The results show that the annealed ZnS thin films have more homogeneous morphology and better crystallinity compared with the as-deposited film. It was found that the crystallinity and mean grain size of ZnS films increase with the S pressure. Meanwhile, the transmittance of the film was significantly enhanced in the visible spectrum region with the increase of S vapor pressure, which may be attributed to the lower defects density of the film annealed at higher S vapor pressure. However, the optical band gap of ZnS thin films decrease with the increase of S pressure, which is associated with the larger grain size and higher crystallinity. The decreased band gap can adjust the conduction band offset of the buffer/absorber heterojunction in copper based semiconductor material (such as Cu(In,Ga)Se2, Cu(In,Ga)S2 or Cu2ZnSnS4)solar cell to a lower energy barrier to enhance the electron injection from absorber to ZnS buffer layer. According to the structural and optical properties analysis, the obtained ZnS thin films annealed at higher S pressure can potentially be used as better buffer layer of thin film solar cells.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No.2016JJ3122), National Nature Science Foundation (Nos. 51102203,11874316,11474244), National Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2012CB921303, 2015CB921103), Hunan 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Engineering & Technology with Environmental Benignity and Effective Resource Utilization and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT13093).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hunan Key Laboratory for Micro-Nano Energy Materials and Devices, Xiangtan University, Hunan, 411105, People’s Republic of China

    Rui Shan, Jianxin Zhong & Sui Yang

  2. Laboratory for Quantum Engineering and Micro-Nano Energy Technology and Faculty of Materials and Optoelectronic Physics, Xiangtan University, Hunan, 411105, People’s Republic of China

    Rui Shan, Jianxin Zhong & Sui Yang

  3. College of Chemistry, Xiangtan University, Hunan, 411105, People’s Republic of China

    Jie Yi

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  1. Rui Shan
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Shan, R., Yi, J., Zhong, J. et al. Effect of sulphur pressure on properties of ZnS thin film prepared by chemical bath deposition technique. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 30, 13230–13237 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-019-01686-2

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