Enhancement of physical properties of nebulizer spray-pyrolyzed PbS thin films for Optoelectronic device application: an effect of Ag doping

Here, using a jet nebulizer spray pyrolysis (JNSP) approach, we have created a highly sensitive P-N junction diode using nanostructured Ag-PbS films as the junction layer. Ag-PbS films' single-crystalline hexagonal phases, of which crystallite size steadily grew with the Ag concentration, were validated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. The Ag-PbS thin films with a 3 wt% Ag content showed distinctive surface morphology with square-shaped grain structures, according to the Field Emission Scanning Microscopy (FE-SEM) images. With increasing Ag content, the optical band-gap energy rises from 1.88 to 1.925 eV. We are the first to report on the photodiode features of nanostructure p-Si/n-Ag:PbS diodes that recorded a positive photoresponse current under illumination by establishing the nanostructure of Ag-PbS. The junction layer's improved detectability corroborates this at higher concentrations of 3 wt% Ag. For the diode made with 3 wt% of Ag, we attained a high responsivity (R) of 36.21 mA/cm(2), minimum ideality factor (n = 1.90), and maximum barrier (phi(B) = 0.706 eV), which is higher than that of pure PbS. The P-N diode could record 13.9% quantum efficiency (QE) because of a nanostructured Ag-PbS layer, making it the perfect choice for a photo-detector application.