In the present work, CuInS2 nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized by water-bath method with deionized water as solvent and thioglycolic acid as complexing agent at 80°C. The phase transition of CuInS2 from chalcopyrite to wurtzite was realized by adjusting the pH value of reaction solution. The emergence of Cu2S in the condition of higher pH value of reaction solution led to the form...

Novel core-shell nanostructures comprised of cubic sphalerite and hexagonal wurtzite ZnS have been synthesized at 150°C by a simple hydrothermal method. The results of HR-TEM and SAED investigation reveal that the cores of hexagonal wurtzite ZnS (ca. 200 nm in average diameter) are encapsulated by a shell of cubic sphalerite ZnS. The FE-SEM image of the nanomaterials shows a surface tightly pac...

The collaboration between Sharp Laboratories of America (SLA), Oregon State University (OSU) and ORNL focused on low thermal budget pulse thermal processing (PTP) technique to develop high performance copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) thin film system for advanced photovoltaic (PV) applications, with the goal to develop novel fabrication processes for the manufacture of low-cost, high-performance ...

This work characterizes defects and phases within Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTS(Se)), an earth-abundant material used to make thin film photovoltaic solar cells. Overall research efforts focus on improving the solar cell device efficiency with the hope that it can be produced at the terawatt energy scale and circumvent material supply bottlenecks of current thin film photovoltaic technology. In this wor...

Monodispersed ZnO nanoparticles have been synthesised in ethylene glycol medium using zinc acetate and sodium hydroxide at room temperature through ultrasonic treatment. The monodispersed ZnO nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, and optical spectroscopy. The results indicate that ZnO shows the hexagonal wurtzite structure having 8 nm average particle size with the band gap of 3.93...

The aqueous based reflux method useful for the green synthesis of nanostructures is described in detail. In this method, the parameters: the order of addition of precursors, the time of the reflux and the cooling rate should be optimized in order to obtain the desired phase and morphology of the nanostructures. The application of this method is discussed with reference to the synthesis of CZTS ...

Microwave synthesized nano-sized Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) powder was irradiated with 6 MeV electrons, to investigate stability under radiation. The structural, optical, vibrational and morphological properties were explored using X-ray diffraction, UV–Visible spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy scanning electron microscope (SEM). sample shows significant change in when compared the pristine sample. peak b...

Kesterite Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) semiconductor has been demonstrated to be a promising alternative absorber in thin film solar cell in virtue of its earth-abundant, non-toxic element, suitable optical and electrical properties. Herein, a low-cost and non-toxic method that based on the thermal decomposition and reaction of metal-thiourea-oxygen sol-gel complexes to synthesize CZTS thin film was develo...

We have performed a rigorous investigation of the structure and composition of individual grains in copper-zinc-tin-sulfide (CZTS) films realized by sulfurization of a sputtered metal stack. Although on average close to the ideal CZTS stoichiometry, elemental analysis shows significant grain-to-grain variations in composition. High-resolution Raman spectroscopy indicates that this is accompanie...