Deposition and characterization of Cu4SnS4 thin films by chemical bath deposition method

A low cost chemical bath deposition method has been used for the preparation of Cu4SnS4 thin films onto indium tin oxide glass substrate. The deposition parameters such as bath temperature (50 °C), deposition time (120 min), electrolyte concentration (0.05 M) and bath pH (1.5) were optimized to obtain good quality thin films. The structural, surface morphological and optical properties of thin films were studied by X-ray diffraction, an atomic force microscopy and an UV-Vis Spectrophotometer, respectively. The X-ray diffraction study revealed that the Cu4SnS4 films were polycrystalline in nature with the preferential orientation along the (221) plane. The atomic force microscopy results indicated that the films were smooth, uniform and the substrate surface was covered completely at these experimental conditions. These films exhibited p-type semiconductor behavior with the band gap energy about 1.57 eV.