Chemically prepared nanocrystalline PbS thin films

PbS nanocrystalline thin films were prepared by Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) technique. A comparative study between "standard" and "nanocrystalline" PbS thin films was performed. We denoted "standard" the PbS film with a good photosensitivity for to use as IR detector. This film was deposited after 1 hour from chemical bath containing reducing agent and Bi ions as doping element. The "nanocrystalline" film was obtained at shorter reaction time (after 17 minutes) from reducing bath without doping element. The other parameters: concentration of the reactants, pH, temperature were kept constant for the all depositions. The morphological properties of the films were determined by SEM analysis. Also, the electrical and photoelectrical behaviors were investigated for the both types of PbS films. The "nanocrystalline" film had a very high electrical resistance (10(10)-10(11)Omega/square) compared with the "standard" film (10(5)-10(6)Omega/square). Both types of films proved to be sensitive to the surrounding atmosphere, air or vacuum. Thermally Stimulated Current (TSC) measurement had shown the presence of trap concentration in the both cases, probably due to the large amount of disordered regions.