The effects of the metal acetate on the deposition and properties of the cadmium sulfide thin films grown by chemical bath deposition technique

Cadmium sulfide (CdS) thin film is one of the important wideband gap semiconductor materials, which has the important applications in solar cells and photocatalysis. In this paper, chemical bath deposition was used to prepare the CdS thin films on glass substrates, while metal acetate was added to adjust the properties of thin film. Some characterization techniques were used to study the microstructure, optical properties of CdS thin films. X-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman and other results showed that metal in metal salts did not exist as impurities in CdS thin film. And, CdS thin film prepared by chemical bath deposition with metal acetate is amorphous thin films. Transmission spectrum showed that the transmittance of CdS films without additives was relatively low. When the concentration of additives increased, the transmittance in the visible region increased obviously, and the absorption edge blue shifted obviously. Photoluminescence spectroscopy showed that there were two emission peaks in CdS thin films, and the presence of additives can adjust the ratio of intensity for the two emission peaks. Finally, the role of additives in the deposition process was analyzed in detail.