Facile synthesis of single crystalline sub-micron Cu sub(2)ZnSnS sub(4) (CZTS) powders using solvothermal treatment

Single crystalline sub-micron Cu sub(2)ZnSnS sub(4) (CZTS) powders were successfully synthesized by a facile solvothermal method, using l-cysteine as sulfur precursor. It was confirmed that pure kesterite structured CZTS powders were synthesized at 400 degree C after 5 h, with the irregular polygonal particle size being 500 nm to 1 mu m. Interestingly, single crystalline CZTS particles were also obtained by simple solvothermal treatment without post annealing. The H sub(2)S released from l-cysteine had an impact on the growth of CZTS particles at high temperature. Further, the as-synthesized CZTS powders were used as counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and it is indicated that the CZTS counter electrode based DSSCs show a conversion efficiency of 4.243%.