Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 48
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2013-40569-3

Regular Article

Synthesis and characterization of Cd_1−xZn_xS nanopowder and its nanostructured thin films

Departement of Physics, Golestan University, 4916764699 Gorgan, Iran

^a e-mail: r.lotfiorimi@gu.ac.ir

Received: 12 September 2013
Received in final form: 9 November 2013
Published online: 18 March 2014

Abstract

Cd_1−xZn_xS (with x = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05 and 0.1) nanopowder were synthesized by chemical precipitation method under N₂ atmosphere at room temperature. Cd_1−xZn_xS nanostructured thin films were deposited on the glass at 450 °C by spraying the colloidal suspension of the Cd_1−xZn_xS nanoparticles. Optical and structural properties of both nanostructures were investigated. The prominent peaks of X-ray diffractions (XRD) of samples indicate that the Cd_1−xZn_xS crystalline grain size in the nanostructured thin film is larger than the Cd_1−xZn_xS nanoparticles in the nanopowder, due to growing of the grains, originated from high temperature of the substrate. UV-Vis absorption spectra show that both Cd_1−xZn_xS nanostructures have smaller band edge wavelength in comparison with bulk samples. There is also an increase in blue shift value of the band gap of both Cd_1−xZn_xS nanostructures, with increasing x, which can be attributed to Burstein-Moss effect. It was found that the variation of the band gap of Zn_xCd_1−xS nanopowder and nanostructured thin films with Zn concentration are approximately linear with similar slopes. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra indicated that the emission peaks of both the samples are shifted toward the shorter wavelengths with increasing Zn⁺² ions.