Preparation of crystalline CdSe particles by chemical bath deposition

Crystalline CdSe particles were prepared by keeping the precursor solutions at temperatures above 60 °C. It was essential to use sodium sulfite as a stabilizing agent for selenium ions and sodium dicarboxylate as a complexing agent for cadmium in the precursor solution. The principal crystalline phase of the samples obtained at 60 °C was a cubic zincblende-type phase, but those prepared at 80 °C coexisted with a hexagonal wurtzite-type phase. The ratio of cadmium to selenium in the samples decreased with an increase of the concentration of selenourea in the precursor solutions, irrespective of the kind of complex agents and the keeping time of the precursor solutions. The band-gap energy of CdSe with an atomic ratio (Cd/Se) of 1 showed a value of 1.74 eV, but that with the ratio of 2.3 gave a slightly smaller value of 1.42 eV.