Thin films of tin sulphide (SnS) have been grown by sulphurization of sputtered tin precursor layers in a closed chamber. The effect of sulphurization temperature (T-s) that varied in the range of 150-450 degrees C for a fixed sulphurization time of 120 min on SnS film was studied through various characterization techniques. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis demonstrated the transformation of metallic tin layers into SnS single phase for T-s between 300 degrees C and 350 degrees C. The X-ray diffraction measurements indicated that all the grown films had the (111) crystal plane as the preferred orientation and exhibited orthorhombic crystal structure. Raman analysis showed modes at 95 cm(-1), 189 cm(-1) and 218 cm(-1) are related to the A(g) mode of SnS. AFM images revealed a granular change in the grain growth with the increase of T-s. The optical energy band gap values were estimated using the transmittance spectra and found to be varied from 1.2 eV to 1.6 eV with T-s. The Hall effect measurements showed that all the films were p-type conducting nature and the layers grown at 350 degrees C showed a low electrical resistivity of 64 Omega-cm, a net carrier concentration of 2 x 10(16) cm(-3) and mobility of 41 cm(2) V-1 s(-1). With the use of sprayed Zn0.76Mg0.24O as a buffer layer and the sputtered ZnO:Al as window layer, the SnS based thin film solar cell was developed that showed a conversion efficiency of 2.02%. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.