Preparation of CuInS₂ Thin Film Using Sulfides Nanoparticle Precursor Ink

A low cost spin coating route of fabricating CuInS₂ polycrystalline thin films by reactive sin-tering method was put forward. The ink for spin coating was optimized by pre-reducing the precursor powders in hydrogen, which turned the nanoparticle precursor powders from mixed sulfides into a mixture of CuInS₂ and Cu-In metal alloys. The results of scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectra showed that this optimization could highly improve the performance of CuInS₂ polycrystalline thin films, including higher packing density, less impurity phases, and better quality. The en-ergy gap of optimized CuInS₂ thin film was determined to be about 1.45 eV by absorption spectroscopy measurement.