ABSTRACT
Abstract ................................................................................................. 174 11.1 Introduction ................................................................................ 174 11.2 Materials and Methods ............................................................... 181 11.3 Result and Discussion ................................................................ 183 11.4 Conclusion ................................................................................. 197 Acknowledgment .................................................................................. 198 Keywords .............................................................................................. 198 References ............................................................................................. 199
ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of recent advances in the polymerassisted synthesis of cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanostructures. Among wide band gap semiconductors CdS with its direct band gap of 2.42 eV at room temperature is a promising material in solar cell, photo-catalysis, chemical sensing, thermo-electricity, etc. The thin films of CdS are conventionally grown by physical or chemical deposition route. However, physical deposition route requires the high cost of the necessary equipment and restrictions of coatings on a relatively small area have limited their potential applications. Chemical-solution depositions such as sol-gel are more cost-effective, but many metal chalcogenides cannot be deposited and the control of stoichiometry is not always possible owing to differences in chemical reactivity among the metals. Here we report a novel process to grow metal chalcogenides films in large areas at low cost using polymerassisted chemical bath deposition, where the polymer controls the viscosity and binds metal ions, resulting in a homogeneous distribution of metal precursors in the solution and the formation of uniform metal-organic films. The latter feature makes it possible to grow simple and complex crack-free epitaxial metal-chalcogenide thin films like CdS.
