Compositional, Structural and Morphological Analyses of Bulk GeS Alloy and its Thin Films

Abstract

Bulk Germanium monosulphide (GeS) alloy was synthesized using the usual melt-quenching technique. Its grains were used as the source material to deposit thin films by vacuum thermal evaporation. Thin-films samples were doped with 1, 2, and 3 at.% indium by thermal co-evaporation and annealed in a vacuum at temperatures 373, 473 and 550 K for an hour. Compositional, structural, and morphological properties of the bulk GeS alloy and its thin films were investigated by Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) techniques. The analyses verified the stoichiometry (GeS) of the starting material in the prepared thin films. They also revealed that the thin films under study are amorphous, homogeneous, without any cracks deposited uniformly on the glass substrate with thickness 650 to 700 nm.