Substrate temperature dependence of structural, morphological and optical properties of Sn4Sb6S13 thin films deposited by vacuum thermal evaporation

Abstract In this work, structural and morphological properties of Sn4Sb6S13 thin films grown by single source thermal evaporation were investigated. The films were deposited onto glass substrates heated in the temperature range 30–200 °C then characterized by XRD, AFM, SEM and Raman spectroscopy. The films are preferentially oriented along the ( 6 ¯ 11 ) plane. Analysis of the surface morphology reveals that the films had an average roughness increasing from 2.81 to 8.23 nm as the substrate temperature increases from 30 to 200 °C. The variations of the microstructural parameters, such as crystallite size (D), dislocation density (δ), the number of crystallites per unit area (N), the stacking fault probability (P) and strain (e) with substrate temperature were investigated. Raman measurement was used to obtain more information about structural changes of Sn4Sb6S13 films. The optical parameters were deduced by using Forouhi-Bloomer models.