Journal
CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS
Volume 25, Issue 9, Pages 1615-1620Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/cm304152b
Keywords
photovoltaics; iron pyrite; FeS2; nanocrystal; resonant inelastic X-ray spectroscopy; X-ray absorption
Funding
- Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy [396 DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion, an Energy Frontier Research Center
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences [DE-SC0001293]
- Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, of the U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- Innovation Seed Fund in Energy and Climate Research at the University of California (Berkeley, CA)
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Iron pyrite (FeS2) is a promising photovoltaic absorber because of its Earth abundance, high optical extinction, and infrared band gap (E-g=0.95 eV), but its use has been hindered because of the difficulty of phase pure synthesis. Pyrite phase purity is a paramount concern, as other phases of iron sulfide have undesirable electronic properties. Here we report the synthesis of phase pure iron pyrite nanocrystals with cubic morphology and a mean dimension of 80 nm. Control over the nanocrystal shape was achieved using an unusual ligand, 1-hexadecanesulfonate. The particles were characterized via synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy, indicating an indirect band gap of 1.00 +/- 0.11 eV and a valence bandwidth of nearly 1 eV. Transmission electron microscopy from early reaction stages suggests a nucleation and growth mechanism similar to solution precipitation syntheses typical of metal oxide nanocrystals, rather than the diffusion-limited growth process typical of hot-injection metal chalcogenide nanocrystal syntheses.
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