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

Abstract

In this paper, we report a facile, low cost synthesis and characterization of kesterite Cu2ZnSn(S-x,Se1-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 degrees C to 550 degrees 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 Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS), ZnS, Cu2-xS, Sn2S3 and Cu2SnS3. 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.