CdS thin films formed on flexible plastic substrates by pulsed-laser deposition

Abstract

The merger of a transparent plastic foil substrate with a semiconductor CdS film for a photonic application was realized using pulsed-laser deposition. Although plastic is not considered to be a favoured substrate material for semiconductor thin-film formation, the deposited CdS film possesses good adhesion, with a polycrystalline texture, flat surface (roughness/thickness = 0.003), and room-temperature photosensitivity with a blue-shifted peak at 2.54 eV. This work demonstrates the capability of pulsed-laser deposition to form novel heterostructures with appealing and useful technological properties such as plasticity and low weight.

Band gap engineering in PbS nanostructured thin films from near-infrared down to visible range by in situ Cd-doping

“…In fact, it is anticipated in the case of nanocrystalline thin films that the domains have a tendency to increase its size near the film surface, thus SEM images representing the surface features of the film, give maximum possible size of grains [17]. On the other hand, crystallite sizes calculated using the XRD data is thickness averaged magnitude, which usually dominated by the smallest crystallites [18]. Similar discrepancy has been reported for various thin films.…”

Surface and interface of epitaxial CdTe film on CdS buffered van der Waals mica substrate

“…The value of R increases with increasing bias voltage V DS . The calculated R is ~163.9 µA/W for V DS = 10 V. Our responsivity value R of epitaxial CdS film is larger than ~1 μA/W measured from ~300 nm thick polycrystalline CdS films with ~8 nm size crystals on plastic substrates [64] or 10 -4 -10 -5 A/W measured from 300 -400 nm thick polycrystalline CdS films with tens nm size crystals on p-GaAs substrate [65]. Note that the R value depends on film texture, incident photon wavelength, contacts, bias voltage, photodetector design and size [66].…”

Employment of Pulsed-Laser Deposition for Optoelectronic Device Fabrication

“…PLD is in particular well suited for the production of operative optoelectronic/photonic device prototypes such as the GaAson-glass merger and GaAs/Si photodiodes. Low-temperature PLD opens another door of fruitful research: The formation of predominantly amorphous thin films, which reveal quantum-confined features (Acharya et al, 2007). Ongoing work on nanostructured CdS films on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates formed with nanosecond low-temperature PLD is a promising alternative to fragile, rigid device structures.…”