Direct fabrication of oriented MnS thin films by chemical bath deposition

Oriented thin films of manganese sulfide (MnS) have been deposited by a simple chemical bath deposition (CBD) method, which was a soft solution-processing route for preparation of semiconductor thin films. By varying deposition conditions (e.g. bath temperature, concentration ratio of Mn2+ ions to CH3-CS-NH2 and concentration ratio of Mn2+ ions to C6H5Na3O7), the effects of synthetic conditions on the properties of films were investigated. On the basis of experimental results, the synthetic conditions were optimized. The crystallinity and orientation of films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Using the optical absorption data, the optical band gap for the MnS films was determined to be 3.23 eV.