Cubic-structured tin selenide thin film

Tin selenide thin film with a simple cubic crystalline structure (SnSe-CUB) of unit cell dimension a = 11.9632 angstrom is obtained via chemical deposition on a tin sulfide (SnS-CUB) thin film base layer of simple cubic structure of a = 11.5873 angstrom. The SnSe-CUB films obtained this way are thermally stable while heating to 300 degrees C. Its optical band gap is 1.4 eV. A thin film of 200 nm in thickness of this material in a solar cell may lead to a light generated current density of 23 mA cm(-2) and a maximum of 29 mA cm(-2). Thin film of SnSe-CUB possesses p-type electrical conductivity of 5 x 10(-5) V-1 cm(-1), which is three orders of magnitude lower than that of SnSe films of orthorhombic crystalline structure. Overall, these characteristics make SnSe-CUB thin film a novel solar cell absorber material. (C) 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim