Studies on growth and characterization of ternary CdS1-xSex alloy thin films deposited by chemical bath deposition technique

Ternary alloyed CdS1-xSex thin films of variable composition 'x' were grown by the simple and economical chemical bath deposition technique. The as-grown thin films were characterized for structural, compositional, surface morphological, optical and electrical studies. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of the sample indicated that all the samples were polycrystalline in nature with hexagonal structure. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs showed uniform morphology with spherical shaped grains distributed over entire glass substrate. EDAX studies confirmed that the CdS1-xSex films were having approximately same stoichiometry initially as well as finally. Room temperature optical measurements showed that band gap engineering could be realized in CdS1-xSex thin films via modulation in composition 'x'. Electrical resistivity of CdS1-xSex thin films for various compositions was found to be low. The broad and. ne tunable band gap properties of ternary CdS1-xSex thin films have potential applications in opto-electronic devices. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.