DEVELOPMENT OF ARDUINO-BASED CYCLIC VOLTAMMETRY ANALYZER FOR SEMICONDUCTOR GROWTH

Abstract

This research focuses on the development of arduino-based cyclic voltammetry (CV) analyzer to provide a low cost, accurate and special purpose analysis for semiconductors growth. Its primary function is to obtain suitable potential range to deposit semiconductor materials. It was developed using operational amplifiers arranged in different configurations. A potential staircase generator circuit which uses a 12 bit digital-to-analogue converter supplies the scanned voltage to the potentiostat circuit. The potentiostat controls the applied potential to a two electrode electrochemical cell containing the semiconductor materials under investigation. A 4x4 matrix keypad with switches and 20x4 liquid crystal display were used as the input and output devices respectively. A 16-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADS1115) and arduino mega 2560 were used to read and store the data on a micro secured digital card. The results obtained were used to plot the cyclic voltammograms of zinc sulphide (ZnS), cadmium sulphide (CdS) and aluminum gallium selenide (AlGaSe). The cyclic voltammogram of ZnS revealed potential range of ~1100 to 1600 mV which is the appropriate voltage range to grow ZnS thin films. For CdS, a suitable potential range of 900 to 1500 mV was obtained to grow the thin films. This voltage range conforms to the results reported in literature. The voltammogram of aluminum gallium selenide also revealed suitable potential range of 11000 to1700 mV that can be explored to grow the thin films. The developed instrument is cost effective, easy to use and maintain.