Chalcogenide Letters Vol. 6, No. 9, September 2009, p. 437 – 443 ZINC SULFIDE FINE PARTICLES OBTAINED AT LOW TEMPERATURE A. DUMBRAVA a* , C. BADEA a , G. PRODAN b , I. POPOVICI a , V. CIUPINA b a Department of Chemistry, Ovidius University, Constanta, 900527, Romania b Department of Physics, Ovidius University, Constanta, 900527, Romania The zinc sulfide was prepared using as precursors zinc complexes and thioacetamide, at room temperature. The size and morphology, crystal structure, and optical properties of the zinc sulfide were analyzed by X - ray Diffraction, Selected Area Electron Diffraction, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry, and UV - Visible Spectrophotometry. The results show that the zinc sulphide powders are constituted by crystalline aggregates, which are made by uniform nanoparticles. The X-ray Diffraction and Selected Area Electron Diffraction patterns confirm the presence of cubic structure (blende type). The IR spectra prove that the zinc sulfide has good transmittance within the wavelength number range from 400 to 4000 cm -1 . The UV-Vis spectra show that the obtained zinc sulfide has strong absorption within the wavelength range from 250 to 300 nm. (Received August 4, 2009; accepted September 29, 2009) Keywords: Zinc sulfide, Thioacetamide, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Selected Area Electron Diffraction, X – ray Diffraction. 1. Introduction In last years, there has been an explosive growth of nanoscience and nanotechnology, primarily because of the availability of new methods of synthesizing nanomaterials, as well as tools for characterization and manipulation. Now it is a better understanding of size-dependent electrical, optical and magnetic properties of individual nanostructures of semiconductors, metals and other materials. An important field of research is the development of new synthetic processes to produce ultra fine particles with nanocrystalline structure. Nearly monodisperse nanocrystals of materials with narrow size distributions have been prepared by several workers, with control of the shape in some instances.[1] Semiconductor nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 2 to 10 nm are an important class of new materials. Zinc sulfide, a II - VI semiconductor, is an interesting material having applications in the optoelectronics industry (for electroluminescent devices, solar cells and other optoelectronic devices). The most popular configurations of ZnS are zinc blende (sphalerite) and wurtzite. For technological applications, wurtzite is probably the most useful one because of its non-central symmetry and polar surfaces.[2] As for other semiconductors, the zinc sulfide optical and electrical properties are dependent of particles size. The zinc sulfide nanoparticles were obtained in a variety of shapes (nanorods, nanofibres, nanosaws, nanospheres, nanotubes, nanocubes, nanowires, etc.) and by a lot of experimental techniques.[3–9] There were obtained nanoparticles of zinc sulfide using solid-state methods, thermolysis of the polymetallic thiolate cages, decomposition of molecular precursors, thermal evaporation etc.[2, 4, 10, 11] The materials used in syntheses were zinc salts, metallic zinc, complex * Corresponding author. e-mail adumbrava@univ-ovidius.ro