Investigation of samarium-doped PbS thin films fabricated using nebulizer spray technique for photosensing applications
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Semiconducting materials are playing a significant role in electro-optical devices. Their applications extend to energy conversion, photocatalysis, optoelectronics, and nonlinear optics, due to their unique properties [[1], [2], [3]]. PbS is a IV-VI semiconducting chalcogenide having direct bandgap energy of 0.4 eV. PbS has been used as an infrared sensor and solar cell owing to its narrow bandgap [[4], [5], [6], [7]]. PbS nanostructure has a bulk exciton Bohr radius of about 18 nm, so it possesses strong quantum confinement in the nanosized structure. According to the effective mass model the bandgap can be controlled by modifying the particle size. The PbS material has many applications such as photocatalysts, new-generation solar cells, thermoelectric materials, infrared detectors, biological imaging [[8], [9], [10], [11], [12]]. S. Wageh et al. [13] fabricated Al/PbS/p-Si/Al photodiode with a high dark rectification ratio of 5.85 × 104 at an applied voltage of ±4 V. G.N. Ankah et al. [14] developed PbS quantum dot based photodetectors for sensing X-rays. They optimized the value of layer thickness for detectors employed in medical imaging. T. Ghomian et al. [15] studied the role of isopropylamine capping on the PbS quantum dots for enhanced photosensing and photovoltaic applications. M. Shkir et al. [16] investigated improved photosensitivity of PbS nanosheets with the increase of current intensity. Recently, L. Mochalov et al. demonstrated the fabrication of nanostructured polycrystalline PbS thin films using the low-temperature non-equilibrium radio frequency plasma deposition method [17].
There are various methods available to prepare thin films, viz: pulsed electro-deposition, dc magnetron sputtering, thermal evaporation, rf-magnetron sputtering, spray pyrolysis, chemical bath deposition, and nebulizer spray pyrolysis method [[18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]]. The spray pyrolysis method is relatively easier and economical amongst the above-mentioned methods and using this method one can deposit thin films of large area and control the deposition parameters. The particle size and the thickness can be controlled in the nanometer range using a unique method of nebulizer spray pyrolysis (NSP) technique [24]. Besides, the nebulizer spray process possesses several merits compared to the conventional ones. We can achieve a good crystalline film by varying experimental parameters like reducing droplet size and temperature of the substrate. Thus, nebulizer spray pyrolysis can be effectively used to deposit PbS films. Doping is an effective technique to modify the morphology of surface and structure; to regulate particle size. Further, doping is helpful in improving the physicochemical features of films [25]. Rare earth doping (e.g. Ce, Eu, Sm, Er, etc.) improves the optical properties of the nanostructured materials due to their incomplete 4f electron configurations [[26], [27], [28], [29]]. M. Faraz et al. demonstrated an improved photocatalytic activity of Sm-doped ZnO nanoparticles against Malachite Green (MG) dye [30]. W. Naffouti et al. reported the effect of samarium doping on the physical properties of TiO2 thin films and they observed enhanced photoluminescence properties of TiO2 thin films on samarium doping [29]. L. Saravanan et al. observed a high specific area about 140 m2/g in the case of Sm-doped CdS nanocrystals obtained from co-precipitation method [26].
In this study, we prepared PbS and samarium-doped PbS thins films and studied the role of samarium on the structure, light absorption and emission, morphology, and photocurrent properties of the PbS thin film coatings.
Section snippets
PbS and Sm-doped PbS films deposition
The PbS and Sm-doped PbS films are coated on glass substrates using the nebulizer spray method. The glass substrates were cleaned with detergent, rinsed in doubly deionized water, dried in hot air, and then used for deposition. For PbS thin film coating, 0.1 M Lead nitrate (Pb(NO3)2) was dissolved in distilled water in a 10 ml beaker, thereafter, 0.1 M thiourea (CS(NH2)2) was added into the beaker containing lead nitrate solution under stirring. Stirring continued until a clear solution was
Structural studies
X-ray diffractometric analysis was used to explore the structural features of the deposited PbS:Sm coatings. Fig. 1 illustrates the X-ray diffractograms of the fabricated PbS:Sm thin film coatings. The peaks indexed to the (111), (200), (220), (311), and (400) planes are related to the polycrystalline PbS with face-centered cubic structure and well-matched with the JCPDS card no. 05–0592. The (200) peak is the strongest peak among the observed peaks which indicates that the prepared film has
Conclusions
PbS and Sm-doped PbS films were fabricated using the nebulizer spray pyrolysis procedure for photo-sensing device applications. XRD studies confirmed that the PbS films having crystallites of face-centered cubic structure and Sm ions are efficaciously fused into PbS which is confirmed with the EDX analysis. The crystallite size is increased from 21 to 29 nm for 0 to 3 wt% Sm concentration in PbS and decreased to 22 nm for 5 wt% Sm doping. SEM images reveal the PbS film has tightly packed grains
Credit author statement
K. Paulraj: Writing - original draft. S. Ramaswamy: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision. N. Chidhambaram: Visualization, Writing - review & editing. H. Algarni: Writing - review & editing. Mohd. Shkir: Writing - review & editing. S. AlFaify: Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The author H. Algarni extends his appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through a general research project under Grant Number G.R.P- 315/40.
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