STRUCTURAL AND OPTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CdS:Fe THIN FILMS PREPARED BY FLASH EVAPORATION METHOD

CdS thin layers of 250 nm thick doped with zero, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 weight percents iron were deposited on glass substrates by modified flash evaporation technique in vacuum at the pressure of 5 × 10−6 mbar. The structure of the films was investigated by X-ray diffractometry. It was revealed that the films had hexagonal structure with (002) preferred orientation. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was employed to study the surface morphology of the prepared samples. It was found from FESEM images that the Fe-doped CdS film showed more surface uniformity. Optical absorption data of the films were used to measure the band gap of the films. It was found that the band gap of the samples decreased upon increasing the Iron concentration. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the CdS:Fe thin films were used to study most prominent excitation peaks within the energy range (1.6–2.6 eV). The variation in peak energy was observed upon increasing the Fe content in the films.