Interaction of metal sulphides in films deposited from solutions of thiourea coordination compounds. Review

Abstract

Metal sulphides are highly important for the technology of semiconductor film materials. The potential of these compounds has not been exhausted yet when it comes to creating optoelectronic devices, solar cells, and luminescent devices based on them. The goal of this work was to determine the nature of interaction of sulphides in polycrystalline layers of CdS–MemSn, where Me are metals of groups I–VII of the periodic table. Cadmium sulphide was chosen as the common component of all studied systems due to the great photoelectric and luminescent properties of this well-studied material. It was shown that using aerosol spray pyrolysis of the solutions of thiourea complexes, we can obtain solid solutions and chemical compounds of CdS–MеmSn at temperatures not exceeding 500 °C. The main electric, optical, and luminescent properties of the layers were described. It was established that the use of aerosol spray pyrolysis of the solutions of thiourea coordination compounds allows significantly expanding the areas of solubility during the formation of solid sulphide solutions. The specific character of solid-phase interaction and nonequilibrium of the processes occurring during the deposition of layers allow avoiding structural incompatibility of the components expressed in the form of typical factors, such as the non-uniformity of crystal structure, differences in the chemical nature of the components, and discrepancies in sizes of substituting/penetrating atoms. Under such conditions of deposition of films (the lower threshold of deposition temperatures is determined by the temperature of decomposition of the most thermally stable thiourea coordination compound and does not exceed 250 °С), the solid-phase interactions of most sulphides cannot be achieved. Therefore, the interaction occurs at the moment of thermal destruction of complex compounds due to the emerging valence opportunities of their structural fragments

Keywords

• metal sulphides
• thiocarbamide coordination compounds
• polycrystalline films
• aerosol spray pyrolysis
• solidphase interaction