What are thin films used for?

Thin films are used for protecting the surface of many material, especially optical elements, from wear, scratches, fingerprints, and even from corrosion.

What are thin films in nanotechnology?

A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer to micrometers in thickness. Thin films are created through a process called “deposition.” Deposition is a thin film coating process, which is achieved by modifying the four states of matter, solid, liquid, vapor and plasma.

What is the aim of thin film deposition?

Thin film deposition involves deposition of individual atoms or molecules on the surface while thick coating deals with deposition of particles. It is being used to modify the physical and chemical properties and surface morphology of materials without altering the properties of the bulk material.

What is semiconductor thin films?

In general, semiconductor thin films are produced in one or more thin layers. Common applications of such structures include many electronic materials such as transistors, sensors, and photovoltaic devices.

What is thin film growth?

Thin-film growth occurs typically from thermodynamically equilibrium conditions that may even be limited by the atomic species kinetics. It results in the possibility to grow new atomic arrangements with genuine properties that have no counterpart in the bulk.

What major technique did you utilize to prepare your thin film?

In order to obtain thin films with good quality, there are two common deposition techniques: physical and chemical depositions. It can be summarized as shown in Table 1. Vacuum thermal evaporation. Electron beam evaporation.

What is thin film research?

The Thin Films Research Centre focuses on the study of functional films produced by physical and chemical deposition techniques. These include a wide range of applications such as coatings for aerospace, automotive, high value manufacturing, microelectronic applications as well as antimicrobial implants and tools.

How does substrate temperature affect the performance of ZnS thin films?

ZnS thin films have been successfully grown on glass substrates using RF magnetron sputtering at various substrate temperatures ranging from 100°C to 400°C. The influence of substrate temperature on the structural and optical properties of ZnS films prepared in the experiment has been characterized.

What is the Zn/S ratio of Zn-rich and s-deficient Zn films?

All of the ZnS films deposited at different substrate temperatures are Zn-rich and S-deficient in terms of EDAX results. However, the Zn/S ratio of the films formed at 350°C is 0.99, indicating an ideal stoichiometric proportion of ZnS.

What is the grain size of zinc blende in ZnS films?

The XRD analyses indicate that ZnS films have zinc blende structures with (111) preferential orientation, whereas the diffraction patterns sharpen with the increase in substrate temperatures. The FESEM data also reveal that the films have nano-size grains with a grain size of approximately 69 nm.

What are the optical transmittance spectra of ZnS films?

The optical transmittance spectra in the wavelength range of 200 to 1,100 nm of ZnS films deposited at different substrate temperatures are shown in Figure 4. The films deposited at 100°C and 200°C have relatively lower transparency, and small shoulders were observed in the absorption line.