Temporal-dependent photoconductivity of Cd@ZnS microspheres

ABSTRACT

Cd@ZnS microspheres with diameters of ~ 4 μm and a shell thickness of about ~ 1 μm have been successfully fabricated via green, ecofriendly solvothermal approach. These microspheres are tailored using chelating agent ethylenediamine tetra acetic acid, non-ionic surfactant poly ethylene glycol (PEG) and precursor thioacetamide. The structural information such as phase, size and morphology of prepared microspheres is characterised using X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) while the optical properties are studied using optical absorption of as prepared products. It is found that cubic phase of prepared products formed with tiny constituent as crystallites are about ~ 15 nm in size, as indicated by TEM observation. Temporal-dependent photoconductive response characteristics are quantitatively analysed thoroughly. The results clearly demonstrate that the fabrication of Cd@ZnS microspheres-based photoconductive devices will have potential applications in the future optoelectronics as optical switching and visible-light photodetectors.

KEYWORDS:

• Photoconductivity
• X-ray diffraction
• Cd:zns
• solvothermal method

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Prof. D. Pandey, School of Material Science, IIT BHU, India, and Prof. S. I. Patil, Physics Department, Pune University, India, for providing XRD and TEM facility, respectively. One of authors A. K. Shahi thankfully acknowledge to CSIR for awarding SRF.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statement of Novelty

In the present manuscript, we reported the solvothermal synthesis Cd@ZnS microspheres with diameters of ~4 μm. As prepared samples were characterised by XRD, TEM, EDX and UV-visible spectroscopy. These microspheres are tailored using chelating agent ethylenediamine tetra acetic acid, non-ionic surfactant poly ethylene glycol (PEG) and precursor thioacetamide. We have conducted photoconductivity measurements to understand the internal mechanism of the material for use in optoelectronic devices. Temporal-dependent photoconductive response characteristics are quantitatively analysed thoroughly. The results clearly demonstrate that the fabrication of Cd@ZnS microspheres-based photoconductive devices will have potential applications in the future optoelectronics as optical switching and visible-light photodetectors.