Antimony Sulfide Thin Films Obtained by Chemical Bath Deposition using Tartaric Acid as Complexing Agent

The deposition of uniform, reproducible and compact Sb_2S_3 thin films were obtained by chemical bath deposition using tartaric acid as a complexing agent. It was found that the thickness of the films increases with the pH of the solution, reaching values of 130 and 170 nm for pH values of 9.5 and 10, respectively. XRD, as well as Raman analysis, showed amorphous Sb_2S_3 films formed directly from the chemical bath, which crystallized into stibnite after a thermal treatment in N_2 with crystallite sizes between 31 and 39 nm. On the other hand, the optical band gap of the Sb_2S_3 films decreased with an increase in pH, with values of 1.82–2.03 eV for the crystalline ones. An n-type photo-conductivity of 10^-6 Ω^-1 cm^-1 was obtained for the heated films. The evaluation of these films for solar cell applications using CdS as the window layer gave a V_oc of 656 mV and a J_sc of 2.66 mA/cm^2 under AM1.5G radiation.

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