Investigation of hawleyite-type cadmium sulfide under the influence of acoustic shockwaves

Abstract Cadmium sulfide (CdS) is an excellent semiconducting material which holds applications for optoelectronics and energy storage technologies. Though the response of the hawleyite type-CdS to the extreme environmental conditions, such as acoustic shockwaves, remains unrevealed. In this work, cadmium sulfide (CdS) QDs were synthesized by the chemical precipitation method, and the acoustic shockwave irradiated experimental findings on hawleyite-type cubic CdS QDs with structural, optical, and luminescent properties. The present work deals with the impact of 200 and 400 acoustic shock pulses with a Mach number of 1.5 on the CdS QDs. The analytical techniques, such as powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and Selected area electron diffraction (SAED), Ultraviolet -visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-Vis-DRS), and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), were employed for analysis. The obtained results from the PXRD and HRTEM study demonstrate the degree of crystallinity and structural properties were strongly affected under the shock-treated conditions. Interestingly, from the SAED pattern, it could be seen that the cubic phase of CdS was retained even up to 400 doses of shock pulses, with each pulse having a transient pressure and temperature of 0.59 MPa and 520 K, respectively. The optical absorption spectrum suggests the fine-tuning of the bandgap from 2.52 eV to 2.44 eV under the exposure of shock pulses on CdS QDs. The high intensity of the photoluminescence spectrum at 400 shock-treated conditions ensures the reduction in strain rates, which in turn promotes good thermal stability for the usage of CdS QDs in efficient solar cell applications. As a result, the improvement of the material’s property without altering the crystallographic structure under the exposure of acoustic shock pulses establishes an innovative pathway that offers new directions for materials processing in optoelectronics and next-generation functional technologies.