Role of Cu⁺ on ZnS:Cu p-type semiconductor films grown by sputtering: influence of substitutional Cu in the structural, optical and electronic properties

Abstract

ZnS:Cu films were synthetized by co-sputtering. A Cu content higher than 10.6 at% lead to changes as the shrinkage of the ZnS:Cu cell and development of a p-type behavior. These results are explained by the substitution of Zn+2 ions by Cu+ ones.

High figure-of-merit p-type transparent conductor, Cu alloyed ZnS via radio frequency magnetron sputtering

“…Low mobility of these materials are due to the high effective mass of holes. This was also corroborated via Seebeck coefficient measurements; representative data for the F4 with S = +35.5 µV K −1 , is shown in Fig.5.Chamorro et al also observed that for Cu > 10% content in RF sputtered Cu:ZnS, the film shows p-type conductivity[22]. From Fig.4, it can be seen that the conductivity…”

Solution‐Processed Transparent Self‐Powered p‐CuS‐ZnS/n‐ZnO UV Photodiode

“…The p‐type conductivity is believed to come from the hole conducting network formed by CuS nanocrystals (p‐type) and it increases with the content of CuS, while the ZnS nano‐domains serve as the transparent fillers. Thus, it enables the nanocomposite film to possess both transparency and hole conductivity . Here, (CuS) 0.35 :(ZnS) 0.65 is chosen as the candidate to realize a p–n junction with n‐ZnO.…”

Combinatorial Tuning of Structural and Optoelectronic Properties in Cu Zn1−S

“…21 A significant step was development of a facile, low-temperature chemical bath deposition (CBD) approach, yielding ZnS:Cu y S composites with conductivities on the order of 10 3 S cm À1 , albeit with drops in transparency. 22 Subsequently, this compound has been synthesized via various chemical and physical methods, e.g., sol gel, 23 spray pyrolysis, 24,25 atomic layer deposition (ALD), 26,27 and sputtering, 28,29 among others (see Table S1). We emphasize that remarkable properties and crystalline films have been achieved even at low deposition temperatures; this is particularly advantageous to applications in optoelectronic devices with low thermal budgets, such as CdTe and perovskite photovoltaics (PV).…”

“…To contextualize our findings and highlight previous studies on this material, we compared properties of Cu x Zn 1Àx S reported in the literature in Figure 7. [19][20][21][22][23][24]28,37,[65][66][67][68][69] Marker shapes denote the phase reported in each study, which are all alloys except for the ZnS + CuS composite system (triangles), while the color indicates the reported Cu concentration. Samples from the literature are denoted with thin outlines, while those from this study have thick outlines.…”

“…Electrical and Optical Properties of Cu x Zn 1Àx S Reported in the LiteratureRealized optoelectronic properties of the Cu x Zn 1Àx S phase space across all literature studies, from 2009 to 2018, highlighting conductivity as a function of band gap (Cu concentration is the color bar) [19][21][22][23][24]28,37,[65][66][67][68][69] The marker shape depicts the reported crystalline phase. Thin lines indicate samples from the literature, while thick lines indicate a representative set of samples from this study.…”