Quaternary Chalcogenide Nanocrystals: Synthesis of Cu₂ZnSnSe₄ by Solid State Reaction and their Thermoelectric Properties

Abstract

In this paper, synthesis of Cu 2 ZnSnSe 4 (CZTSe) materials by using simple and costeffective solid state reaction method from the elemental Cu, ZnO, SnO and elemental Se powders are carried out. The SEM images show spherical, non-uniform size with aggregation of nanopowders. The phase separation and thermal analysis of the milled powders suggested that most of the starting powders reacted because of a mechanical alloying effect during milling process. After the solid state reaction at above 500 o C, the nanopowders crystallized into stannite single phase, which are confirm by XRD spectra. The thermoelectric properties of synthesized powder are under study.

Synthesis and characterisation of CZTSe bulk materials for thermoelectric applications

“…CZTSe has a band gap in the range of 1.4 -1.5 eV, also has thermoelectric properties useful in energy conversion technologies. A number of methods have been used for the synthesis of CZTSe thin films and bulk materials, like Aqueous Synthesis method [34], RF-DC sputtering method [35,36], thermal co-evaporation [37], electro deposition method [38], Molecular beam epitaxy [39] and solid state reaction [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] etc.…”