Electrochemical deposition of the single phase TlxCu3-xSe2 thin films

Abstract

In spite of selenide semiconductors having a wide application area, TlCu2Se2 (TCSe) is poorly studied and its synthesis by non-vacuum or thermic methodology in film form is non-existent. Generally, the main problems of applying these TCSe compounds are related to complicated single phase growth, and the great time consuming and non-scalable fabrication method. In this work, the facile, fast, scalable and new electrochemical deposition of this material was proposed as a workaround for these main problems and obtaining single phase thin film. Thus, the electrodeposited TlxCu3 - xSe2 films were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (with Rietveld refinement) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. They showed interesting variation of composition (x =1.1, 1.2, and 1.25) and morphology as function of the electrodeposition potential, electrolytic bath temperature and thermal treatment.