Synthetic pathway of a Cu2ZnSnS4 powder using low temperature annealing of nanostructured binary sulfides

Abstract

Cost-effective route to quaternary Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 nanostructured powder fabrication was developed by utilizing a two-step approach. In the first stage, nanostructured binary sulfides Cu 2 S, ZnS, and SnS were synthesized by chemical bath deposition. In the second stage, ternary sulfide Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 was obtained by low-temperature annealing of binary sulfides' mixtures at 70 and 300• C. The compounds obtained on both stages were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, optical absorbance and Raman spectroscopy. On the basis of our findings, we established that Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 phase has already formed at 300• C. The synthetic pathway revealed in this work allows reducing the temperature of Cu 2 ZnSnS 4 synthesis and as a result, offers the possibility of reducing the manufacturing costs.

Structural and optical characteristic features of RF sputtered CdS/ZnO thin films*

“…The electronic charge injection from ZnO to CdS produces an efficient electronic charge separation due to a decrease in the exciton recombination; one of the excitons is bounded to the ZnO and the other to the coupled CdS. [13,14] The CdS is suitable to constructing the core-shell heterostructures with ZnO, including onedimensional core-shell heterostructure, which are the most promising heterostructures for photo-catalytic and solar energy applications. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21] In the CdS/ZnO nanostructures, ZnO is a wide optical band gap in the range of ∼ 3.34 eV.…”

Influence of cadmium acetate salt concentration on the composition, structure and morphology of CdxPb1-xS solid soluton films

“…It is clearly seen that the film preliminary consists of 200 -300 nm globules, which in turn are formed from 50 -60 nm particles. It should be noted that nanostructural character of precursory layers of hydrochemically deposited sulfides is also mentioned in [57].…”