Chemical synthesis of α-La2S3 thin film as an advanced electrode material for supercapacitor application

• The simple, chemical method used for synthesis of lanthanum sulphide thin films.
• The lanthanum sulphide thin film surface exhibited porous microstructure.
• The lanthanum sulphide thin film electrode is used for supercapacitor application.

α-La2S3 thin films have been synthesized for the first time by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) method and used for supercapacitor application. These films are characterized for crystal structure, surface morphology and wettability studies using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform-Raman (FT-Raman) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and contact angle measurements. The electrochemical supercapacitive performance of α-La2S3 electrode is evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge discharge (GCD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. From the electrochemical study, it is seen that α-La2S3 electrode delivers high specific capacitance of 256 F g−1 at scan rate of 5 mV s−1 with cycling stability of 85% over 1000 cycles. Such La2S3 electrode has great application in supercapacitor device for energy storage.