Rk. Pandey et al., EVOLUTION OF THE MORPHOLOGY, STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION OF CDTE-FILMS POTENTIOSTATICALLY ELECTRODEPOSITED FROM AN ETHYLENE GLYCOL-BASED BATH, Materials chemistry and physics, 37(2), 1994, pp. 141-148
A study of cadmium telluride electrodeposition under potentiostatic co
nditions on a nickel electrode in an ethylene glycol-based bath contai
ning 1 M CdCl2, 0.01 M TeCl4 and 0.3 M KI at 160-degrees-C is reported
. A deposition mechanism is proposed based on steady-state polarizatio
n characteristics. The influence of the deposition potential on the de
posit morphology, composition and structure was also investigated by S
EM and X-ray analysis. It is shown that the observed trends agree with
the proposed mechanism of electrodeposition, and that surface process
es and chemical reactions play a fundamental role. The experimental op
erative conditions to obtain stoichiometric thin films with uniform gr
anular morphology are clearly outlined.