Abstract The glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique was used to grow cadmium sulfide (CdS) thin films on glass and indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass substrates from a sublimate vapor effusion source. The samples were prepared under different incident deposition flux angles (α) of 0o, 20o and 80o, while both the substrate and the source were under rotation. The temperature of the source was 923.15 K. Scanning electron microscopy images showed that the GLAD method combined with the source produced dense nanocolumnar structures with height and diameters of ∼200 and∼30 nm, respectively. The deposited films displayed a hexagonal structure with preferential (002) plane orientation and crystallites sizes between∼25 nm and ∼35 nm. A maximum solar weighted transmission of ∼92% was obtained for the sample prepared at α = 80o, with a substrate/sourcerotation velocity ratio of 55/20 in the wavelength region of 400-900 nm. The average band-gap energy of the films was ∼2.42 eV. Refractive indexes between ∼1.4 and ∼2.4 at a 550 nm the wavelength was also obtained.

The ability of molecular modeling techniques based on quantum chemical methods to predict the molecular and electronic structure of organic conducting polymers is examined. More specifically, we report on the applicability of these computational tools to study different aspects of polythiophene and its derivatives: molecular geometry and planarity, the structural changes induced by the doping process, the electronic properties and the design of new conducting materials.

Se presenta la capacidad de las técnicas de modelización molecular basadas en métodos de la química cuántica para predecir la estructura molecular y electrónica de polímeros conductores. Concretamente, se discute la aplicabilidad de estas herramientas computacionales al estudio de diferentes aspectos del politiofeno y sus derivados: geometría molecular y planaridad, cambios estructurales producidos por el dopado, propiedades electrónicas y desarrollo de nuevos materiales conductores.