Compositional effect of antimony on physical properties of quaternary copper antimony tin sulfide nanoparticles

Environmental friendly and low cost materials for photovoltaic applications always gain a keen interest to make them economical with increased performance. Quaternary compounds with I(2)x -IV-VI4 arrangement offers favorable properties for optoelectronic devices. In this work, we have substituted antimony in the matrix of Cu-2(x)SnS4 to form Cu2SbSnS4 (CATS) nanoparticles, where the effect of Sb substitution was investigated by the change of ratio with four different compositions. Structural properties reveal the incorporation of antimony with different amounts to significantly alter the morphology of CATS between nanosheets and nanoparticles. All samples obtained the optical bandgap between 1.28 eV and 1.35 eV, which is highly suitable for solar cells. CATS results indicate it has the potential to use in photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications.

Automated summary

The study introduces environmentally friendly and low-cost materials for photovoltaic applications, where antimony is substituted in the matrix of copper-tin sulfide to form Cu2SbSnS4 nanoparticles. By investigating the effect of antimony substitution with different ratios, the structural properties reveal a significant alteration in the morphology of CATS, while the optical bandgap measurements suggest the potential application of CATS in solar cells.