J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2014, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (10): 1006-1011.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2014.03.019

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Structural Morphological and Optical Properties of SnSb2S4 Thin Films Grown by Vacuum Evaporation Method

N. Khedmi1, M. Ben Rabeh1, *, M. Kanzari2   

  1. 1.Laboratoire de Photovoltaï
    ques et Maté
    riaux de Semi-conducteurs-ENIT-Université
    de Tunis el Manar,BP 37, le belvedere, 1002 Tunis, Tunisie;
    2.Laboratoire de Photovoltaï
    ques et Maté
    riaux de Semi-conducteurs-ENIT-IPEITunis Montfleury-Université
    de Tunis, Tunisie
  • Received:2013-10-21 Online:2014-10-20 Published:2014-11-04
  • Contact: Prof.; Tel.: t216 97 44 23 62; Fax: t216 7192 15 98; E-mail address: mohamedbenrabeh@yahoo.fr(M. Ben Rabeh).

Abstract: SnSb2S4 thin films were prepared from powder by thermal evaporation under vacuum of 1.33 × 10-4 Pa (10-6 Torr) on unheated glass substrates. The effect of thickness on the structural, morphological and optical properties of SnSb2S4 thin films was investigated. Films thickness measured by interference fringes method varied from 50 to 700 nm. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that all the SnSb2S4 films were polycrystalline in spite without heating the substrates and the crystallinity was improved with increasing film thickness. The microstructure parameters: crystallite size, strain and dislocation density were calculated. It was observed that the crystallite size increased and the crystal defects decreased with increasing film thickness. In addition, by increasing the film thickness, an enhancement in the surface roughness root-mean-square (RMS) increased from 2.0 to 6.6 nm. The fundamental optical parameters like band gap, absorption and extinction coefficient were calculated in the strong absorption region of transmittance and reflectance spectrum. The optical absorption measurements indicated that the band (Eg) gap of the thin films decreased from 2.10 to 1.65 eV with increasing film thickness. The refractive indexes were evaluated in transparent region in terms of envelope method, which was suggested by Swanepoul. It was observed that the refractive index increased with increasing film thickness.

Key words: Ternary system, Thermal evaporation technique, Thin films, Thickness, Atomic force microscopy (AFM)