Structural and optical properties of tin sulfide nanostructures

This paper presents modification of tin sulfide (SnS) thin films by pulsed laser irradiation. Tin sulfide films of 1 µm thickness were prepared using chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique. The chemical bath contained 5 ml acetone, 12 ml of triethanolamine, 8 ml of 1 M thioacetamide, 10 ml of 4 M ammonium hydroxide and 65 ml of distilled water. The chemical bath was kept at a constant temperature of 60 °C for 6 h which resulted in SnS films with 500 nm thickness. By double deposition, the final thick- ness of SnS thin films obtained was 1 µm. Laser processing was conducted to modify the structure, morphology and physical properties of the SnS thin films. The laser specifications were pulsed Nd:YAG laser with 532 nm wavelength, 300 mJ pulse energy and 10 ns pulse width. Properties of the laser-irradiated SnS thin films were compared with the as- prepared SnS thin films. The changes in structure, morphology, optical and electrical properties of the laser-irradiated SnS thin films were described.