The Production of UV Absorber Amorphous Cerium Sulfide Thin Film

This study investigates the production of cerium sulfide (CeSx) amorphous thin films on substrates (commercial glass) by chemical bath deposition at different pH levels. The transmittance, absorption, optical band gap and refractive index of the films are measured by UV/VIS Spectrum. According to XRD analysis, the films show amorphous structure in the baths with pH: 1 to 5. It has been observed that the optical and structural properties of the films depend on pH value of the bath. The optical band gap (2.08 eV to 3.16 eV) of the films changes with the film thickness (23 nm to 1144 nm). We show that the refractive index has a positive relationship with the film thickness, where the values of 1.93, 1.45, 1.42, 2.60 and 1.39 are obtained for the former, and 34, 560, 509, 23 and 1144 nm (at 550 nm wavelength) for the latter. We compare the optical properties of amorphous and crystal form of CeSx thin films. We show that the optical band gaps of the amorphous CeSx are lower than that of crystal CeSx.