Author(s)

Saima Mushtaq¹, Bushra Ismail², Muhammad Raheel¹, Aurang Zeb^1,3

¹Department of Applied Physics, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
²Department of Chemistry, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan.
³Department of General Studies, Jubail University College, Jubail Industrial City, KSA.

Chemical bath deposition technique has been used to deposit Ni-doped Sb2S3 thin films onto glass substrate. Doping was carried out by adding 1, 3 and 5 wt% of Ni. Bath temperature was kept as 10℃ and films were annealed at 250℃ under vacuum. Polycrystalline nature of films with an orthorhombic phase was analyzed by X-ray diffraction technique. Scanning electron microscopy was used for morphological study which shows that grains are spherical. Optical measurements using transmittance data indicated that films have a direct band gap of 1.00 - 2.60 eV with an absorption coefficient of ~104 cm^-1 in visible range. The average value of electrical conductivity was calculated as 1.66, 1.11 and 1.06 (Ω·cm)^-1 for as-deposited films and 1.90, 2.08 and 1.15 (Ω·cm)^-1 for annealed films while refractive indices were found as 2.18 - 3.38 and 1.91 - 3.74 respectively. The obtained films can be used for solar cell applications due to their good absorbing properties like higher absorption coefficient and refractive index values.

Ni Doped, Optical Constants, Sb2S3 Thin Films, Chalcogenides, Solar Cells

Mushtaq, S. , Ismail, B. , Raheel, M. and Zeb, A. (2016) Nickel Antimony Sulphide Thin Films for Solar Cell Application: Study of Optical Constants. Natural Science, 8, 33-40. doi: 10.4236/ns.2016.82004.