"Green" Aqueous Synthesis and Advanced Spectral Characterization of Size-Selected Cu2ZnSnS4 Nanocrystal Inks

Oleksandr Stroyuk; Alexandra Raevskaya; Oleksandr Selyshchev; Volodymyr Dzhagan; Nikolai Gaponik; Dietrich R T Zahn; Alexander Eychmüller

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-32004-1

"Green" Aqueous Synthesis and Advanced Spectral Characterization of Size-Selected Cu₂ZnSnS₄ Nanocrystal Inks

Sci Rep. 2018 Sep 12;8(1):13677. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-32004-1.

Authors

Oleksandr Stroyuk^{1

2}, Alexandra Raevskaya^{3

4}, Oleksandr Selyshchev⁵, Volodymyr Dzhagan⁶, Nikolai Gaponik⁷, Dietrich R T Zahn⁵, Alexander Eychmüller³

Affiliations

¹ Physical Chemistry, TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany. alstroyuk@ukr.net.
² L.V. Pysarzhevsky Institute of Physical Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 03028, Ukraine. alstroyuk@ukr.net.
³ Physical Chemistry, TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany.
⁴ L.V. Pysarzhevsky Institute of Physical Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 03028, Ukraine.
⁵ Semiconductor Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, 09107, Chemnitz, Germany.
⁶ V. E. Lashkaryov Institute of Semiconductors Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 03028, Ukraine.
⁷ Physical Chemistry, TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany. nikolai.gaponik@chemie.tu-dresden.de.

Abstract

Structure, composition, and optical properties of colloidal mercaptoacetate-stabilized Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) nanocrystal inks produced by a "green" method directly in aqueous solutions were characterized. A size-selective precipitation procedure using 2-propanol as a non-solvent allows separating a series of fractions of CZTS nanocrystals with an average size (bandgap) varying from 3 nm (1.72 eV) to 2 nm (2.04 eV). The size-selected CZTS nanocrystals revealed also phonon confinement, with the main phonon mode frequency varying by about 4 cm^-1 between 2 nm and 3 nm NCs.

Abstract

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