Abstract
CdS thin films were deposited by a chemical bath deposition technique (CBD). The bath solution is composed of CdCl2 (0.1 M) salt as a source for Cd and thiourea (0.1M) as a source of sulphur (S). To avoid the toxicity and volatility of the commonly used ammonia, ethanolamine (ETA) is used as complexing agent. Films were deposited with different times from 30 to 120 minutes in order to study the films growth mechanism. The solution temperature was fixed at 60 degrees C. The structural and morphological films characterizations were carried by XRD analysis and AFM observations. From the XRD analysis we inferred that obtained CdS films have a pure hexagonal structure with the preferential orientation along the plane (101). The pure hexagonal structure is highly recommended for the realization of CdTe/CdS or CuInSe/CdS solar cells. The presence of the hexagonal structure and the low growth rate in order of 1nm/min suggest that the growth mechanism is achieved through the ion by ion process. The optical characterization result indicates that the obtained films have a high transparency from 80 to 60 % in the visible range. In conclusion we inferred that CBD ammonia free CdS thin films deposition enables the production of films suitable for photovoltaic applications.