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Influence of thiourea in the precursor solution on the structural, optical and electrical properties of CZTS thin films deposited via spray coating technique

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Abstract

CZTS films were prepared by spray coating using non-aqueous precursor solutions with and without sulphur source and studied their structural, optical and electrical properties. The films prepared by both the routes were sulphurized at different temperatures to study the effect of temperature on the phase formation. Phase purity was confirmed by XRD, Raman analysis and Rietveld refinement technique. The studies revealed proper phase and crystallinity for the films of both routes sulphurized at 550 °C. These films exhibited dense and improved grain structure, optimal bandgap and higher absorption coefficient. The non-thiourea films sulphurized at 550 °C had a carrier concentration of 1.544 × 1019 cm−3, mobility of 0.87 cm2V−1 s−1 and resistivity of 0.46 Ω·cm, while the thiourea films achieved carrier concentration, mobility and resistivity of 3.67 × 1019 cm−3, 0.33 cm2V−1 s−1 and 0.52 Ω·cm, respectively. The comparative study demonstrates that the films under investigation have the potential for the fabrication of efficient solar cells.

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Acknowledgements

Research Grant received from the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India (No. DST/TM/SERI /2K12/120) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are thankful to the Director, C-MET, Thrissur for extending the facilities to carry out this work. We are also grateful to Dr. V. Raghavendra Reddy, UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research, Indore for the grazing incidence X-ray diffraction measurements.

Funding

The research leading to these results received funding from the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India under Grant Agreement No. DST/TM/SERI /2K12/120.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Scientific Society, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, Shoranur Road, Athani P.O, Thrissur, 680 581, India

    P. Prabeesh, V. G. Sajeesh, I. Packia Selvam & S. N. Potty

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  1. P. Prabeesh
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  2. V. G. Sajeesh
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  3. I. Packia Selvam
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  4. S. N. Potty
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Contributions

PP: Investigation, Writing—Original draft preparation, Formal Analysis; VGS: Investigation; IPS: Resources, Data curation; SNP: Conceptualization, Supervision, Methodology, Writing—Reviewing and Editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to S. N. Potty.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. The authors further declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Prabeesh, P., Sajeesh, V.G., Selvam, I.P. et al. Influence of thiourea in the precursor solution on the structural, optical and electrical properties of CZTS thin films deposited via spray coating technique. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 32, 4146–4156 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-020-05156-y

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