Abstract
Indium sulfide thin films have been grown onto glass substrates using radio frequency magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The as-deposited film were annealed in nitrogen atmosphere at different temperatures of 100, 200, 300, 400 and $500^{\circ}C$ with an 1 h annealing time. The effect of annealing temperature on composition, structure, morphology and optical properties of the as-grown In2S3 films has been studied. The XRD results indicate that the as-deposited films are composed by a mixture of both cubic ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ crystalline phases, with some fraction of tetragonal phase. The thermal annealing on the films produces the conversion of the cubic crystalline phases to the tetragonal ${\beta}$ one and a crystalline reorientation of the latter phase. The surface morphological analysis reveals that the films grown at $300^{\circ}C$ have an average grain size of ~ 58 nm. These films show a S/In ratio of 0.99. The optical band gap is found to be direct and the films grown at $300^{\circ}C$ shows a higher optical transmittance of 80% and an energy band gap of 2.52 eV.
