Influence of Substrate Temperature on Electrical Resistivity and Surface Morphology of CuAlS2 Thin Films Prepared by Vacuum Thermal Evaporation Method

Abstract

In this paper the effect of substrate temperature on electrical and morphological properties of CuAlS2 thin films prepared by two stage vacuum thermal evaporation technique have been studied. The electrical resistivity of the films was studied using four point probe method. The surface morphology was examined by employing Evoma-10 Scanning electron Microscope. The resistivity (  ) of CuAlS2 film is found to decrease with increase in substrate temperature, which is related to the increase of carrier concentration with increase in substrate temperature. Thus films grown at an elevated substrate temperatures exhibit the lowest resistivity and high carrier concentration, implying that these are the most conductive films. Low electrical resistivity and high carrier concentration are widely used as the essential components in various optoelectronic devices and photovoltaic cells. Visual inspection of Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrographs of the films showed that crystallite size increase with increase insubstrate temperature