Growth Mechanism and Influence of Annealing Temperature on Structural and Compositional Properties of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin Films Deposited by RF Sputtering Method from a Compound Target

Abstract

Kesterite-type Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) thin films were deposited on corning glass from a single quaternary target. In this study, we report the growth mechanism and the influence of annealing temperature on the structural and compositional properties of CZTS films. All the four samples (as-deposited inclusive) show peaks corresponding to kesterite-type structure. The diffraction peaks of (112) are sharp and the small characteristics peaks of the kesterite structure such as (220)/ (204) and (312)/ (116) are also clearly observed in X-ray diffraction pattern. Some secondary phases that appeared as a result of the annealing were observed in the Raman spectra. These results indicate that the quaternary CZTS would be a potential candidate for solar cell applications.