Morphology evolution route of PbS crystals via environment-friendly electrochemical deposition

We report the detailed roadmap of the morphology evolution of semiconductor PbS crystals synthesized by a green route. Without using any surfactant in our electrochemical deposition process, we obtained rich morphologies of PbS crystals in a bulk amount with uniform size, showing continuous shape change from octahedral to star-like, then to football-like, and finally to cubic morphology, by simple control over the PbCl2 precursor concentration. We discuss such a morphology evolution in detail on the basis of the relative contributions of branching growth and capping effects of the Cl- ions.