We report a new chemical bath deposition route for the preparation of dense, compact and uniform nanocrystalline ZnS thin films, where thiourea acts as a complexing agent as well as a source of sulfide ions. The structural and morphological characterizations suggest that the film and the residual powder in the bath are formed by the aggregation of clusters of ZnS, namely cluster-by-cluster growth mechanism. Xray diffraction (XRD) and HRTEM analyses indicate that the film and powder formed in the bath have cubic zinkblende structure. The films have high transmittance of about 75% in the visible region. Post-deposition annealing in Ar slightly improves the crystallinity and decreases the optical bandgap with increasing the annealing temperature. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.