Electrodeposition and optical properties of highly oriented γ-CuI thin films

Cathodic electrochemical deposition of CuI from room temperature ionic liquid-based electrolytes

“…This may result in a conceptually new approach versus the previously proposed electrodeposition routes that are based on the electrochemical modification of Cu species (i.e. anodization of Cu films [7] or cathodic reduction of complexed Cu 2+ to Cu + ions [8]) in iodide solutions,…”

“…In contrast to the previously proposed approaches based on the electrochemical modification of Cu species (i.e. anodization of Cu films [7] or cathodic reduction of complexed Cu 2+ to Cu + ions [8]) in iodide solutions, the deposition concept is based on the electrochemical reduction of I 2 . Therefore, the present results open wide possibilities to obtain films of other binary metal iodide compounds, but also more complex ones such as the halide perovskites (e.g.…”

“…Although the CuI films have been generally obtained by vapor phase deposition techniques such as sputtering, pulsed laser deposition and two-step approaches based on the iodization of Cu films, there are increasing efforts to develop wet-chemistry deposition routes to obtain CuI films [6][7][8][9] and nanostructures [10,11]. The cathodic electrodeposition has been shown as a versatile technique to obtain binary semiconductors such as metal oxides (e.g.…”

Electrical properties of CuI films prepared by spin coating

“…In every XRD pattern of the CuI films, the intensity of the (111) reflection was much higher than those of the other peaks, showing that the CuI films had a strong <111> texture. The lowest surface energy of the {111} plane of a CuI crystal, which has a zinc blende structure, is believed to lead the growth of the <111> texture [12,13], although the detailed mechanism is not clear.…”

“…Solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells using CuI as the hole conductor have been reported to show power conversion efficiencies of 2.8-6.0% [1][2][3][4][5][6]10]. In these reports, the CuI layers were deposited by drop coating [1][2][3]10], pulsed laser deposition [4,5,12], and electrodeposition [6,13]. Other methods used for the preparation of CuI thin films have also been reported, including vacuum evaporation [14,15], spin coating [16], and sputtering [17].…”