Effect of Black Velvet Tamarind Doping on the Optical and Structural Properties of Sol-Gel Grown ZnS Thin Film Crystals

Uchechukwu Anthony Kalu¹ , Okpala Uchechukwu Vincent² , Okereke Ngozi Agatha³ , Nwori Augustine Nwode⁴

1. Dept. of Physics/Electronics, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, Abia State, Nigeria.
2. Dept. of Industrial Physics, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli, Anambra State, Nigeria.
3. Dept. of Industrial Physics, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli, Anambra State, Nigeria.
4. Dept. of Industrial Physics, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli, Anambra State, Nigeria.

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.9 , Issue.12 , pp.1-9, Dec-2023

Online published on Dec 31, 2023

Copyright © Uchechukwu Anthony Kalu, Okpala Uchechukwu Vincent, Okereke Ngozi Agatha, Nwori Augustine Nwode . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
In this work black velvet tamarind doped ZnS thin films were grown using sol-gel method. Sodium silicate, tartaric acid, zinc nitrate (Zn source) and thiourea (S source) were the main starting materials, while solution drops of locally prepared grounded black velvet tamarind shell was used as dopant. The grown thin film crystals of ZnS and VT-doped ZnS were characterized for their optical and structural properties to determine their possible area of opto-electronic applications. The results of the characterizations showed that the grown thin films have high value of absorbance and percentage reflectance in the VIS and NIR regions. The refractive index of the films was also found to be high, in the range of 12.0-20.0, while the percentage transmittance is low but increased with an increase in wavelength. The bandgap energy of the films decreased as the number of VT drops increased. The values obtained from Tauc plots are 3.0, 2.93, 2.81 and 2.70 eV for un-doped ZnS, 1 drop VT/ZnS, 2 drops VT/ZnS and 3 drops VT/ZnS films respectively. The films have crystalline structures and the crystallite size, dislocation density and micro-strain are influenced by VT doping. The EDS results indicated that the target elements Zn and S in addition to O are present in the samples. These properties possessed by the deposited thin films made them good for opto-electronic applications such as photovoltaic cell, LEDs, waveguide, solar collector, fiber-optics etc.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Sol-Gel, Velvet Tamarind, Zinc Sulfide, Bandgap, Photovoltaic Cells

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