Influence of annealing temperature on the properties of SnS thin films prepared by vacuum thermal evaporation

Abstract

SnS thin films were deposited by thermal evaporation in vacuum on glass slide substrate. The as-deposited films were thermally annealed in a controlled N2 atmosphere with annealing temperature in the range 100-500°C for 30 min. XRD, AFM, UV-VIS transmittance, FTIR and Hall effect measurements were used for characterization the as-deposited and annealed films. Based on the XRD patterns, the as-deposited and annealed films were indentified as the orthrombic structure. The band gap was found to increase from 1.15 to 1.42 eV when the annealing temperature increased from 100 to 500°C. The lowest resistivity and highest carrier concentration values were observed to be 12.95 Ω. cm and 1.98×1016cm-3on the films annealed at 100 and 200°C, respectively.