The physical properties of single crystals of samarium monosulfide exhibit a first order semiconductor-to-metal transition near 6.5 kbar. However, thin films of SmS show only a gradual change in their properties on applying pressure and this renders the technical utilization of the material difficult. Several mechanisms have been proposed as the cause of the smoothing of the transition. They include intrinsic stress, impurities, grain size, improper stoichiometry, and porosity, all of which can be traced to the physical vapor deposition techniques employed in preparing the films. In contrast, chemical vapor deposition was employed in this study because previous work had shown that it could minimize these detrimental modifications in thin films. A new CVD system was tested using a volatile organometallic as the samarium source and reacting it with H₂S. The deposited films contained considerable amounts of oxygen as evidenced by structure analysis, and the origin was traced to the samarium organometallic. The reaction of oxygen-free samarium tricyclopentadienyl with H₂S as well as chemical transport are suggested for deposition of stress-free SmS thin films in future work.

Rare-earth ions holmium (Ho+3), Thulium (Tm+3), and Samarium (Sm+3) were investigated for infrared emission and their possible biomedical applications by a photoluminescence (PL) system. Holmium’s (Ho+3) emission peaks were the result of transitions 5 S2 → 5 I7, and 5 S2 → 5 I5 respectively. Samarium’s (Sm+3) emission peaks were 936 nm and 1863 nm. Thulium’s (Tm+3) emission peaks were the a result of transitions 3 H4 → 3 H6, 3 H5 → 3 H6 , and 3 F4 → 3 H6 respectively. Erbium Oxide nanoparticles (Er2O3) mixed with water by a photoluminescence (PL) system. Erbium Oxide’ (Er2O3) nanoparticle’s emission peaks were the a result of transitions 4 I15/2 → 4 S3/2 , 4 I15/2 → 4 I13/2 respectively. The process was also repeated in vacuum and it was found that the green emission enhances tremendously when the nanoparticles are excited in vacuum. This enhanced luminescence from the Erbium Oxide nanoparticles shows their potential importance in the optical devices and Biomedical applications. / Department of Physics and Astronomy