Abstract
This thesis reports the growth of sulfur thin films using low cost techniques other than those involving vacuum. These simple techniques are spray pyrolysis and chemical bath deposition. In this context, it is necessary to control the development of thin films. Various analyzes were performed such as: XRD, SEM, EDS, AFM, spectrophotometry and TSC. All these analyzes allowed us to improve the physical properties of thin films of SnS in photovoltaic application in a first stage and a second stage to optimize the growth parameters of dosimetric thin films.In the first part, we have elaborated tin sulphide thin films using as an absorber material in photovoltaic devices. For this, different doping such as iron, silver, and gallium as well as annealing in a controlled atmosphere have been made in order to increase the conductivity of these thin films. The doping was carried out during the growth process by adding relative concentration of the aqueous solutions containing Fe2+; Ag2+ and Ga2+ ions. It was found later that the doping of SnS thin films does not result in the decrease of resistivity. So,other physical characterizations are in progress to optimize thin films properties and particularly the resistivity by means of an appropriate heat treatment under controlled atmosphere. The XRD patterns show an increase in crystallite size with annealing temperature, correlated with an improvement in surface topography. In addition, annealing at 600°C results in the structural transition from rocksalt to orthorhombic, leading to enhanced conductivity. From TSC measurement, a gradual increase in the current intensity with increasing annealing temperature was observed. A significant change in the electrical conduction regime occurred for the film annealed at 600°C. The TSC intensity increased by 5 decades compared with that of the SnS annealed at 500°C. The SnS thin film had semiconductor electrical behavior, which can be attributed to the structural transition.During the second part of my thesis, we have optimized the growth parameters of dosimetric thin films. For this, we started with the first material the MgS using spray pyrolysis technique. Different growth parameters were varied such as the substrate temperature, the pH of the solution, the nature of the solvent and that of the carrier gas and the concentration of EDTA. Along the crystallographic analysis (XRD) and chemical (EDS), we concluded the existence of two materials: a high proportion of MgSO4 and MgS in a small proportion. The significant presence of oxygen in in thin films was explained by the fact that the growth of such compound needs a vacuum technique. Another reason may be to the presence of oxygen in the reactants. In fact, the presence of the dominant phase magnesium sulfate may be due to the little amount of the rate of the dissociation MgSO4 to release Mg2+ cation through the EDTA complexing. The effect of annealing performed under vacuum and under nitrogen atmosphere show that this material is not stable at ambient atmosphere and the development of the latter requires thin film manufacturing techniques more efficient and which involve vacuum.We then chose to prepare a second dosimeter material is CaSO4 by spray technique. Intentional doping (Sm, Mn or doubly doped such as (Cu, F), (Cu, Mn)) was analyzed to clarify the behavior of luminescence of the material. However, as it was found that the luminescence of the material after doping is the same as that in the case of undoped and whatever the doping used, we can conclude that the luminescence there is given to the states of its own defects -even and which are present in the spray solution. Hence the luminescence of the material is intrinsic. A study of the TL was performed on a sample irradiated at different doses. It was noted that the signal of the TL increases for increasing irradiation doses.