The effect of DC biasing of Si substrates on the structure and grain size of Pb_(1-x)Fe_xS nanoparticle films

摘要

Pb_(1-x)Fe_xS nanoparticle films were grown on silicon substrates under zero, positive and negative biasing by the chemical bath deposition technique. The grain size for films with a fixed x was observed to increase with positive biasing and decrease with negative biasing of the substrates. Distortion of the lattice is observed to increase and the average grain size decreases as the substrate bias is changed from positive through zero to negative values. The DC conductivity of the films decreases with decrease in grain size due to enhanced surface scattering. The nanoparticle films are semiconducting and show a predominance of variable range hopping of the carriers among localized states.