US thin films were deposited by chemical bath deposition onto glass substrates from chemical bath containing cadmium sulfate, thiourea and ammonia at pH = 10.5. The temperature of the bath was maintained at either 75degreesC or 85degreesC and under mill stirring. After that the samples were annealed in air at 450degreesC. Analysis of the as-deposited thin films by energy dispersive X-ray analysis showed that almost all samples have a stoichiometric composition. The morphology of CdS films has been investigated by atomic force microscopy. The structural properties were determined by XRD and a cubic zincblende phase was present in all of the as-grown samples. Evidence of a wurtzite phase appeared after annealing. Grain sizes between 85 and 205 A were determined from the XRD diffraction peak broadening. The sizes increase with both bath temperature and annealing. The optical properties were studied measuring the transmittance spectra. The room-temperature bandgap energies for each sample were determined from the transmittance by two different methods: extrapolating absorption coefficient and first derivative peak position. The bandgap energy varies from 2.48 to 2.35 eV following closely the quantum confinement dependence of energy against crystallite radius. This shows that the absorption edges of these samples are determined primarily by the grain sizes. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.