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    Electrodeposited metal sulfide thin films for gas sensing applications
    (4th International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Namawardana, D. G. K. K.; Wickramathilaka, P. A. K. Y.; Atapattu, H. Y. R.; De Silva, D. S. M.
    Quantitative measurements of gases are based on a variety of physical or chemical principles. Among them semiconductor gas sensors are best candidates for the development of commercial gas sensors due to their higher specificity and sensitivity. They are mainly based on metal oxide and metal sulfide materials. Due to certain drawbacks of metal oxides, metal sulfides are extensively investigated as novel gas sensing materials. In this study ZnS and CdS were investigated for their gas sensing ability. Both types of thin films were fabricated by electrodeposition using a three electrode electrolytic system consisted of a fluorine doped tin oxide glass substrate (1×3 cm2) as working electrode and a high purity carbon as counter electrode. An aqueous electrolyte containing CdCl2 (0.10 mol/L) and Na2S2O3 (0.01 mol/L) precursors were used for the electrodeposition of CdS material and aqueous electrolyte containing ZnCl2 (0.10 - 0.05 mol/L) and Na2S2O3 (0.01 - 0.05 mol/L) precursors were used for electrodeposition of ZnS material. The CdS depositions were carried out in the cathodic deposition potential (CDP) range of 0.65 to 0.70 V vs. saturated calomel electrode and pH range of 1.5 to 2.0 at a temperature of 55 °C for 30 minutes. The ZnS depositions were carried out in the CDP range of 0.70 to 1.10 V vs. Ag/AgCl reference electrode and pH range of 4.0 to 3.5 at a temperature of 30 °C for 90 minutes. Both types of thin films were characterized for their crystalline structure, surface morphology, and elemental composition by using the techniques of X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy respectively and were exposed to various gases namely; NO2, H2S, and LPG. CdS thin films grown at CDP of 0.67 V and pH of 1.5 and ZnS thin films grown at CDP of 1.05 V and pH of 3.7 were found to have notable gas sensing properties. CdS has shown highest resistance variation of 1.2 Ω towards H2S with respect to the initial resistance of 36.0 Ω and ZnS has shown highest resistance variation of 2 Ω with respect to the initial resistance of 26.2 Ω when exposed to NO2 gas at 30 oC. Both CdS and ZnS thin films showed resistance variation of 1.1 Ω and 0.6 Ω towards LPG respectively at 30 oC.
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    Electrodeposition and characterization of as-deposited and annealed CdTe thin films.
    (Ceylon Journal of Science, 45(2), 53–59. DOI: http://doi.org/10.4038/cjs.v45i2.7388, 2016) Kumarasinghe, K. D. M. S. P. K.; De Silva, D. S. M.; Pathiratne, K. A. S.; Salim, H. I.; Abdul-Manaf, N. A.; Dharmadasa, I. M.
    Thin films of CdTe semiconductor materials were grown on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) conducting glass substrates using the technique of electrodeposition. CdSO4 at high concentrations and CdCl2, TeO2 at low concentrations were used as precursor salts for electrodeposition. The range of deposition potentials was estimated using cyclic voltammetric measurements. The electrical, optical, structural and morphological characteristics of as-deposited and annealed CdTe thin films were characterized using photo-electrochemical (PEC) cell studies, UV-Vis spectrophotometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These particular samples were converted from n-type into p-type after heat treatment. UV-Vis spectrometric measurements for CdTe layers indicated that, the energy band gaps of 1.45±0.02 eV for both as-deposited and annealed samples which exhibited the required optical property for fabricating CdS/CdTe solar cells. Little increase in (220) and (311) peaks of XRD spectra were observed for annealed layers compared to the as-deposited material. However, annealing exhibited a small reduction of cubic phase preferential orientation (111). The optical transmission for both as-deposited and annealed CdTe samples were about 60% for wavelengths longer than about 850 nm.