Chemically deposited CdS films in an ammonia-free cadmium-sodium citrate system

MB Ortuno-Lopez, M Sotelo-Lerma, A Mendoza-Galvan, R Ramirez-Bon

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Abstract

In this work, we report the properties of chemically deposited CdS thin films in a cadmium-sodium citrate system. This chemical bath deposition process does not employ ammonia. We deposited four series of films at different cadmium content in the chemical bath process and determined their properties. The obtained information can be very useful for the optimization of the deposition process in order to reduce the amount of toxic chemical waste, mainly Cd-containing waste. The structural and optical properties of the CdS films were determined from X-ray diffraction, optical transmission and reflection spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy measurements. We found that the properties of the films are very sensitive to the amount of cadmium in the deposition process. The process allows the deposition of good quality CdS thin films using 1.12, 0.84 and 0.76 mg of cadmium per milliliter of reaction solution.

Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Pages (from-to)278-284
Number of pages7
JournalThin Solid Films
Volume457
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2004

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We acknowledge the technical assistance of J.E. Urbina-Alvárez, M.A. Hernández-Landaverde and R. Flores-Farı́as. This work was partially supported by CONACyT (Project No. 34514-U).

Keywords

  • Ammonia
  • Cadmium sulfide
  • Deposition process
  • Lattice parameters
  • Optical properties

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