Femtosecond pulsed laser deposition of CdS thin films onto quartz substrates

CdS thin films were grown on quartz substrates using femtosecond pulsed laser deposition. X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), photoluminescence (PL) measurements, and optical transmission spectroscopy were used to characterize the structure and optical properties of the deposited CdS thin films. The influence of substrate temperature in the range 100–600 °C on the structural and optical characteristics of the CdS thin films was systematically studied. The XRD and AFM results show that the crystalline and surface quality of the CdS thin films can be improved with increasing the substrate temperature to 450 °C, but further increasing the substrate temperature to 600 °C may lead to degradation of the crystallinity and surface quality of the CdS thin films. The corresponding PL and optical transmission results show that the optical properties of the CdS thin films deposited by the femtosecond laser ablation technique can be improved by increasing the substrate temperature from 100 to 450 °C. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)