ARTICLE Copyright © 2014 by American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America Advanced Science, Engineering and Medicine Vol. 6, pp. 1–5, 2014 (www.aspbs.com/asem) Optimization of Antimony Sulphoiodide Synthesis Parameters and Study of Its Electrical Properties Harish K. Dubey 1, 2, ∗ , L. P. Deshmukh 1 , Madhuri Sharon 3 , Maheshwar Sharon 3 , and D. E. Kshirsagar 2 1 Department of Physics, Solapur University, Solapur, M.S., India 2 Department of Physics, Birla College, Kalyan, M.S., India 3 NSNR Center for Nanotechnology and BioNanotechnology, SICES Degree College, Ambernath, M.S., India Shiny SbSI crystals have been synthesiszed by the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique using powder of Antimony, Sulphur and Iodine as the starting material. The impact of parametres used in the method are optimised by the Taguchi optimization technique. The product is derived in the form of needle shaped thin crystals of SbSI on the walls of the quartz tube. Characterizations of the material was acomplished using techniques such as powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) and Raman scattering (0–500 cm -1 ). The material is semiconducting in nature with low condutivity and high dielectric constant. The electrical activation energy (1.87 eV) is observed which matches with the optical band gap. KEYWORDS: CVD, Taguchi Optimization Technique, Electrical Conductivity, SbSI. 1. INTRODUCTION Antimony sulphoiodide (SbSI) is one of the ternary chalcogenide having many interesting properties. It is ferroelectric 1 2 photoconducting 3 and semiconducting. 4–8 Furthermore it shows large electro-optical 8 and electro- mechanical effects. 9 10 Pyroelectric property 11–13 has also been a subject of much interest exibited by this material. Due to these properties it is an attractive and suitable mate- rial for thermal imaging, light modulator, ferroelectric field effect transistor, gas sensors, electro-mechanical transduc- ers, time-controlling devices 14 etc. The SbSI grows mainly as needle shaped orthorhombic crystals 1–3 with space group D 16 2h above 20  C and with the space group C 9 2v at temperature below T c . 1 2 Many researchers have reported the syntheisis of SbSI with vapor phase technique, 15–21 melt growth technique, 2 Bridgman technique, 3 Czocharlski method, 22 hydrothermal growth method, 23 sonochemi- cal method 14 24 etc. In most of methods Sb 2 S 3 and SbI 3 2 16 were used as the starting material to derive SbSI. Use of the elements Sb, S and I in a closed ampoule were avoided because Sb, S and I unite exothermally gen- erating a huge vapor pressure which may lead to explo- sion. In this paper we are reporting the synthesis of SbSI by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique using ∗ Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Emails: harish.nano@gmail.com, harish_nano@yahoo.com Received: xx xx xxxx Accepted: xx xx xxxx elemental components i.e., Sb, S and I and electrical prop- erties of SbSI. 2. EXPERMENTAL DETAILS 2.1. Synthesis of SbSI A CVD setup consists of one high temperature (B) and two low temperature (A) furnaces with temperature control unit (E), a quartz tube (D) as the reaction chamber, two glass tubes (I, H), Ar as the carrier gas (G) and a suitable arrangement to control the gas flow (F) (Fig. 1). The known quantity of Sb was taken in the quartz boat (D) kept in the reaction zone of high temperature furnace (B). Iodine (I) and sulfur (H) were kept in two low tem- perature furnaces (A). Their temperatures were maintained such that their vapour could b formed. The reaction fur- nace (B) was set to the desired temperature. Vapors of Sulfur and Iodine were carried over to boat D where they combined at a set temperature with vapors of Antimony to form SbSI. Once the reaction was complete, all furnaces were allowed to cool. After cooling the final product was collected from chamber D. 2.2. Optimization of Growth Parametres by Taguchi Technique Since number of parameters involved in synthesis were six (amount of Sb, S and I, temperature of reaction zone, flow rate carrier gas and duration of reaction time) Taguchi optimization technique was adopted to find out the best experimental condition to get purest form of SbSI in large Adv. Sci. Eng. Med. 2014, Vol. 6, No. xx 2164-6627/2014/6/001/005 doi:10.1166/asem.2014.1509 1