A facile and low-cost synthesis of promising absorber materials on Cu2ZnSn(Sx,Se1−x)4 nanocrystals consisting of earth abundant elements with tunable band gap characteristics

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 21727 - 21732
• Main Authors: Shin, Seung Wook, Han, Jun Hee, Park, Yeon Chan, Agawane, G. L, Jeong, Chae Hwan, Yun, Jae Ho, Moholkar, A. V, Lee, Jeong Yong, Kim, Jin Hyeok
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25.09.2012
• ISSN: 0959-9428; 1364-5501
• DOI: 10.1039/c2jm33802e

In this paper, we report a facile, low cost synthesis and characterization of kesterite Cu 2 ZnSn(S x ,Se 1− x ) 4 (CZTSSe) nanocrystals (NCs) by a two-step process involving a solution-based precursor and a post-annealing route. The effects of different Se vaporization temperatures, ranging from 350 °C to 550 °C, on the structural, chemical, compositional, and optical properties of CZTSSe NCs were investigated. X-ray diffraction patterns, Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy results indicated that the precursor powder showed several broad peaks that could not be assigned to Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 (CZTS), ZnS, Cu 2− x S, Sn 2 S 3 and Cu 2 SnS 3 . However, the post-annealed NCs with and without Se vaporization were a single kesterite CZTS phase without a secondary phase. UV-vis spectroscopy results showed that the absorption coefficients of all the post-annealed NCs were over 10 4 cm −1 in the visible region, and the optical band gap energy decreased systematically from 1.46 eV to 1.14 eV with increasing Se vaporization temperatures. In this paper, we report a facile, low cost synthesis and characterization of kesterite Cu 2 ZnSn(S x ,Se 1− x ) 4 (CZTSSe) nanocrystals (NCs) by a two-step process.