Impact of thickness and heat treatment on some physical properties of thin Cu2SnS3 films

Abstract

Copper tin sulfide (Cu2SnS3) thin films have been grown on glasssubstrate with different thicknesses (500, 750 and 1000) nm by flashthermal evaporation method after prepare its alloy from theirelements with high purity. The as-deposited films were annealed at473 K for 1h. Compositional analysis was done using Energydispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The microstructure of CTS powderexamined by SEM and found that the large crystal grains are shownclearly in images. XRD investigation revealed that the alloy waspolycrystalline nature and has cubic structure with preferredorientation along (111) plane, while as deposited films of differentthickness have amorphous structure and converted to polycrystallinewith annealing temperature for high thickness. AFM measurementsshowed that the grain size of the films was increasing by annealing.The ultraviolet- visible absorption spectrum measurement indicatedthat the films have a direct energy band gap. Eg decrease withthickness and increase with annealing.