Chemical Bath Deposition of Thin Film Cadmium Selenide for Photoelectrochemical Cells

Chemical bath deposition provides an attractive, low cost method of producing cadmium chalcogenide thin films. Intimate contact between the bath solution and the substrate material permits uniform deposition on substrates of complex geometry, presently difficult with spray pyrolysis, vacuum evaporation, or electrodeposition techniques. For CdSe, rigorous control of deposition conditions promotes the formation of a hexagonal, specularly reflecting deposit rather than a less desirable sphalerite (cubic) powdery deposit. Scanning electron microscopy reveals a small grained layered plate morphology similar to that produced by the evaporation method. Specularly reflecting CdSe films can be formed over large area substrates at a thickness optimal for their use as photoelectrochemical cells (PEC). Employing polysulfide as the redox couple, conversion efficiencies as high as 6.8% have been achieved in the authors' laboratory for these films using a tungstenhalogen white light source.