Effects of Temperature and Agitation Time of Triethanolamine as a Complexing Agent in Production of Tin Sulfide Thin Films by CBD

The effects of the temperature and agitation time of the complexing agent on the structural, morphological, compositional, and optical properties of SnS films deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD) have been studied. The properties of the thin films were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and ultraviolet–visible–near infrared (UV–Vis–NIR) spectroscopy. The XRD results confirmed formation of polycrystalline films with orthorhombic phase. The best thin film was formed when using an agitation time of the complexing agent of 16 min, resulting in a maximum crystallite size of 8.26 nm, lattice parameters close to reported values (a = 4.30 Å, b = 10.55 Å, and c = 3.89 Å), and a calculated bandgap of around 1.65 eV. Investigation of the trend with deposition temperature indicated that values between 40°C and 45°C during CBD were better. Variation of the deposition temperature resulted in crystallite sizes ranging from 5 nm to 25 nm and bandgap values from 1.62 eV to 1.66 eV.