Optical, Structural and Morphological Characterisation of Indium Doped Cadmium Sulphide (Cds:In) Thin Films for Photovoltaic Cell Applications

Ogechi Ogana John^1, , Daniel Ketui¹ and Duke Oeba²

¹Department of physics, Kisii University, Nairobi, Kenya

²Department of physics, Egerton University, Nairobi, Kenya

Cite this paper:
Ogechi Ogana John, Daniel Ketui and Duke Oeba. Optical, Structural and Morphological Characterisation of Indium Doped Cadmium Sulphide (Cds:In) Thin Films for Photovoltaic Cell Applications. International Journal of Physics. 2025; 13(3):49-54. doi: 10.12691/ijp-13-3-1

Abstract

Cadmium sulphide (CdS) thin films were prepared on glass substrates using the spin-coating technique from a precursor solution containing cadmium nitrate tetrahydrate (Cd(NO₃)₂•4H₂O), indium nitrate hydrate (In(NO₃)₃•xH₂O), thiourea (CH₄N₂S), and ammonium nitrate (NH₄NO₃). This study focused on synthesizing indium-doped CdS thin films via spin coating and examining how varying indium concentrations (0.004 M, 0.006 M, 0.008 M, and 0.010 M) affect the structural and optical properties of the films. The resulting thin films were analyzed using several characterization techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Analysis of the absorbance spectra indicated that the optical band gap energy ranged from 3.63 eV to 3.88 eV, with the highest value observed at an indium concentration of 0.008 M. Optical measurements obtained through UV-Vis spectrophotometry confirmed high transparency within the visible region. These findings suggest that increasing the indium content leads to a widening of the band gap.

Keywords:
Spin Coating Thin films Optical Properties morphological properties and structural properties

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