Use of Anionic Surfactant Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate as a Capping Agent in Metal-Chalcogenide PbS Thin Film Production

Abstract

In this paper, nanostructured semiconductor PbS metal-chalcogenide thin films were fabricated by the chemical bath deposition method in a surface active agent environment. The structural, morphological, and optical properties of PbS thin films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, scanning probe microscope and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy analyses. These analyses reveal that surfactant sodium lauryl ether sulphate plays a key role in modifying the surface roughness and optical properties of PbS thin films. The average surface roughness decreased from 87.9 to 42.8 nm after adding sodium lauryl ether sulfate to the chemical bath solutions. With the increasing sodium lauryl ether sulfate content, the optical band gaps of the PbS thin films increased from 2.10 to 2.52 eV. Additionally, the optical transmittance value of the 3% sodium lauryl ether sulfate added sample increased by approximately 37% compared to the pure sample.