Effects of the substrate temperature on the properties of CuIn5S8 thin films

Structural, optical and electrical properties of CuIn5S8 thin films grown by thermal evaporation have been studied relating the effects of substrate heating conditions of these properties. The CuIn5S8 thin films were carried out at substrate temperatures in the temperature range 100-300 °C. The effects of heated substrate on their physico-chemical properties were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), optical transmission and hot probe method. X-ray diffraction revealed that the films are strong preferred orientation along the (3 1 1) plane upon substrate temperature 200 °C and amorphous for the substrate temperatures below 200 °C. No secondary phases are observed for all the films. The composition is greatly affected by heated substrate. From the optical transmission and reflection, an important absorption coefficient exceeds 105 cm−1 at 800 nm was found. As increasing the substrate temperature, the optical energy band gap decreases from 1.70 eV for the unheated films to 1.25 eV for the deposited films at 300 °C. It was found that CuIn5S8 thin film is an n-type semiconductor at 250° C.

► In this work, CuIn5S8 thin films were successfully prepared by thermal evaporation onto different substrate temperatures. ► Which have significant effect on their physico-chemical properties. ► The obtained films present an amorphous structure in nature and become polycrystalline only by heat treatment from 200 ̊C with an enhancement in the intensity of the (311) main peak.